Abstract

Sand control technology is becoming more and more important. which has great influence on fracture operations and well production. To better understand mechanism of proppant transport in water fracturing, the mathematical model of proppant transport is derived and established based on the material balance in the fracture. The coupling effects of proppant settlement, sand bank balance height and fluid flow velocity in the fracture and fluid loss are taken into account. The proppant concentration model is solved by the finite difference method. The whole numerical calculations are carried out by MATLAB-developed program with a computer.. The accuracy of the model is verified by comparing the calculated results with published experiment. we compared the proppant concentration distribution under four different conditions. Finally, the effects of fluid leak-off rate, injection rate, fluid viscosity, proppant concentration and proppant size on proppant distribution in the fracture are investigated by the model