Viscoelastic Surfactant Fluids In The
Application Of Hydraulic
Fracturing
Senior Solution Engineer,
Tel: (281) 285 8106, Email: Haiying.Huang@slb.com
Advisor, Tel: (281) 285 4763, Email: Joseph.Ayoub@slb.com
Hydraulic fracturing is a reservoir stimulation technique in which fractures are created by the injection of viscous fluids and/or slurry into the rock mass. Conductive passages are developed for the flow of hydrocarbons by either placing solid particles to prop the fracture open or by etching the rock surfaces with acid. Self-assembling viscoelastic surfactant based (VES) fluids have been widely used in the application of hydraulic fracturing for their advantages over crosslinked polymer fluids in frictional pressure reduction and the ability to transport solid particles. The rheology of these VES fluids has shown distinct characteristics of either a nearly constant shear stress plateau or shear rate softening in the flow curves. Experimental results obtained from rheometers as well as pipe and slot tests suggest strong links between flow behavior and shear-induced structures. A better understanding of how the rheological properties and macroscale shear induced structures are affected by the microscale properties as well as how the macroscale structures can be predicted based on rheology would be extremely valuable for practical purposes. In this presentation, a phenomenological model is formulated to describe the flow in the fracture. A conceptual hypothesis is also proposed to account for the transport of particles.