Effects of spatial variation of cluster entry friction on hydraulic fracture propagation in multistage fracturing

In this contribution, we explore different aspects of the multi-stage fracturing process such as stress interaction between growing hydraulic fractures, perforation and near-wellbore tortuosity effects as well as the wellbore flow dynamics using a fit-for-purpose numerical model, which accounts for the full fluid-solid coupling nature of hydraulic fracture propagation, stress interactions between multiple growing fractures, and the coupling with the wellbore flow via entry friction. We restrict the hydraulic fractures to be fully contained in the reservoir (e.g. of constant height). After presenting several verifications of this model, we investigate the effect of spatial variation of the entry friction associated with the near-wellbore fracture tortuosity. We show that, although large perforation friction helps to equalize the fluid partitioning between fractures, the pressure drop along the length of the stage and, more importantly, spatial variations of the entry friction due to near-wellbore fracture tortuosity have a more pronounced adverse effect on the fluid partitioning.