Abstract
Clean water fracturing, where clean water is used as fracturing fluid, has the advantages of low damage and low cost. The proppant carrying capacity is a key factor for successful clean water fracturing treatment. Although a lot of experimental work has been carried out, the proppant migration in rough fractures during clean water fracturing is still unclear. In this paper, an experimental study on proppant migration in rough fractures using clean water was conducted, and the proppant transportation in rough fractures with the time increasing was analyzed. Then, the effects including proppant concentration, injection rate and particle size on proppant settlement and migration in fractures were studied. The equilibrium height and the equilibrium time (the time that proppant reaching the equilibrium height) were used to quantitatively evaluate the effects of the above parameters. This study provides useful insights to proppant migration in clean water fracturing.
