Modeling of Compositional Gas Transport in Shale as a Deformable Porous Medium
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ASCE. Commercial production from resource shale has been realized largely due to the creation of propped hydraulic fractures in these unconventional resources. However, the pore pressure declines during production, resulting in a decrease in the fracture width and conductivity. This is because of the matrix and proppant deformation, and consequent embedment of proppants in the shale matrix. We present a new mathematical model and simulation framework to model multicomponent advection and molecular diffusion in a deformable shale medium using the control volume finite element method.We use the Maxwell-Stefan diffusion theory to model the composition- and pressure-dependence of molecular diffusion, while we use a continuum with viscoelastic properties to model the stress and time-dependence of the propped fracture conductivity. The study shows that shale-gas well production creates a non-uniform stress field near the fracture surface. This production-induced stress field tends to close the hydraulic fracture and decrease its aperture over time.