Viscoelasticity of Crosslinked Fracturing Fluids and Proppant Transport

Summary In hydraulic fracturing treatments, the success of the treatment strongly depends on the proper placement of proppant particles in the fracture. "Proper placement" means the packing of the fracture to achieve maximum conductivity of gas/oil through the fracture into the wellbore. The placement of the proppants along the fracture is based on design equations where sand transport velocity is related to the rheological parameters of the fracturing fluid and characteristics of the proppant particle, such as size and density. The present work describes the theoretical transport equations that take into account the elasticity of the fluid in predicting proppant settling rate in the fracture. It presents the rheological data of commonly used fracturing fluids (titanate and borate crosslinked), including viscous and elastic parameter measurements made with a Rheometrics Pressure Rheometer™ (RPR) and Rheometrics Mechanical Spectrometer™ (RMS-800). These data show some important differences between borate crosslinked gels and titanate crosslinked gels. The paper also presents experimental data of proppant settling rates in various fracturing fluids and how these can be correlated with rheological parameters obtained in this work. The difference in rheology between borate and titanate gels was correlated with the difference in settling rates of proppants in these two gels. The theoretical and experimental work presented here led to the conclusion that the model for proppant placement in a hydraulic fracture should include: (1) proppant characteristics, (2) viscous rheological parameters (K and n), (3) elastic parameters (complex dynamic viscosity) from linear viscoelastic constitutive equation, and (4) normal stress difference from nonlinear viscoelastic constitutive equation. The influence of crosslinked-polymer-gel network structure on proppant transport is also discussed.