Study on Synchronous Propagation Behavior of Hydraulic Fractures and Cementing Interfacial Cracks during Fracturing of Shale Horizontal Wells

Large-scale staged hydraulic fracturing stimulation technology is an effective method to increase shale oil and gas recovery. However, cracks will appear along with the cementing interface and expand under the drive of fluid while hydraulic fracturing, failing wellbore sealing. To solve this problem, the synchronous propagation model of hydraulic fractures and cementing interfacial cracks in hydraulic fracturing is established. The Newton iteration method and displacement discontinuity method are used to solve the propagation length of each fracture, and the effects of cement sheath parameters and fracture parameters on the interface failure range are studied. The results show that when multiple hydraulic fractures expand, the interfacial cracks are also affected by “stress shadow,” offering an asymmetric expansion, and the cementing interfacial cracks in the area between hydraulic fractures are easier to expand. The failure range of interface between the hydraulic fractures expands rapidly if the cement elastic modulus increases from 5 GPa to 10 GPa; while the cement elastic modulus is higher than 10 GPa, the failure area is mainly affected by the number of hydraulic fractures; the failure range is not affected by the number of hydraulic fractures if the hydraulic fracture spacing is less than 10 m or more than 30 m; while the crack spacing is between 10 m and 30 m, the more the number of hydraulic fractures, the easier it is to cause the interface failure range to increase and connect. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for the optimization of cement slurry systems and fracturing parameters. Copyright © 2021 Fuping Feng et al. Exclusive Licensee GeoScienceWorld. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).