Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

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Chemical Engineering Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

Numerical simulation and analysis of the influence of fracture geometry

on wormhole propagation in carbonate reservoirs
Ning Qi a, Guobin Chen a,⇑, Chong Liang b, Tiankui Guo a, Guoliang Liu b, Kai Zhang a,⇑
a
School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, Shandong 266580, PR China
b
Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina, Beijing 100083, PR China

h i g h l i g h t s

An effective method for simulating wormhole in fractured formation was proposed.

The effects of three typical fractures on wormhole propagation were studied.

The local control domain around the fracture was found.

A step-by-step calculation method was proposed in this paper.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Wormholes can effectively connect the fracture system as the dominant channels when carbonate matrix
Received 6 September 2018 is acidified, thereby increasing the distance of acidification. It is critical to clarify the wormhole propaga-
Received in revised form 17 December 2018 tion law in carbonate reservoirs so as to optimize the acidification design. Previous studies highlight the
Accepted 31 December 2018
influences of matrix as well as single simple fracture on wormhole propagation. However, the works
Available online 23 January 2019
characterizing impacts of single and multiple fractures with different geometry are insufficient. In this
paper, the two-scale continuum model and pseudo-fracture model were combined to study the worm-
Keywords:
hole with different fractures. It was found that the fractures parallel to injection direction can concentrate
Acidification of large-scale carbonate
reservoirs
fluids and thus accelerate the acid penetrating the formation, while the perpendicular ones will disperse
Two-scale continuum model fluids, thereby slowing down the breakthrough. The effect of straight fractures and arc fractures on
Fracture geometry wormholes are similar. When the inclination angle is less than 60°, straight fracture and arc fracture
Wormhole propagation can be regarded as parallel fracture of corresponding length. When the inclination angle is greater than
Step-by-step calculation method 60°, they can be regarded as superposition of parallel fracture and perpendicular fracture. As for the cir-
cular and polygonal fractures, only the parts near the outlet impact the subsequent wormhole propaga-
tion trajectories. The analysis of flow field shows that there is a control domain of about 3Lcos(h) around
the fractures. When there is no intersection of control domains of multiple fractures, there is no interfer-
ence between them. There is no need to consider all fractures in the formation. Based on this, the step-by-
step calculation method proposed in this paper is suitable for acidizing large-scale formation with com-
plex fracture network.
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Carbonate reservoirs are rich in oil and gas resources. In order to
improve the permeability of the formation near the wellbore,
hydrochloric acid is often used for acidizing treatment. However,
the intense reaction between carbonates and hydrochloric acid as
well as the strong heterogeneity of the reservoir commonly
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: chenguobin@s.upc.edu.cn (G. Chen), zhangkai@upc.edu.cn
(K. Zhang).
contribute to the selective dissolution of large pores and thus the
emergence of wormholes (Maheshwari et al., 2013; Ratnakar
et al., 2013). Such wormholes, as the dominant conduits, can effec-
tively connect the fracture system and increase the acidification
distance. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the propaga-
tion law of wormholes in carbonate reservoirs so as to optimize the
acidification design.
In the past decades, comprehensive works have been done to
characterize wormholes. Hoefner and Fogler (1988) analyzed the
morphology of wormholes through injection of hydrochloric acid
into cores, after which numerous mathematical models have been

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2018.12.047
0009-2509/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143 125

established. In contrast to the capillary model (Daccord, 1993; the convection-diffusion equation, which can be divided into two
Fredd and Fogler, 1998) and the semi-empirical model (Buijse cases, namely the incomplete rock dissolution (u < 1) case and
and Glasbergen, 2005), Panga et al. (2005) built the two-scale con- the complete dissolution (u = 1) case. The former case needs to
tinuum model that considers the convection, diffusion and acid- consider the consumption of hydrogen ions on the rock surface
rock reaction. It succeeded to simulate the complex geometry of and the change of porosity (Eq. (3)), while the latter does not
wormholes under different conditions and has been widely used. (Eq. (4)).
In order to determine the relationship between linear flow and
k
radial flow wormhole fractal dimension, optimal acid injection U¼ rP ð1Þ
rate, and minimum breakthrough pore volume, Kalia and
l
Balakotaiah (2007) extended the two-scale continuum model to a
@u
polar coordinate system. Subsequently, works were done to char- þ rU ¼ 0 ð2Þ
acterize the factors that influence the wormhole propagation, @t
including reservoir boundary geometry, compression region of 8
< @ðuCf Þ þ rðUC f Þ ¼ rðuDe rC f Þ  kc av ðC f  C s Þ
the wormhole front, porosity distribution, and temperature @t
ð3Þ
(Cohen et al., 2008; Samadi et al., 2012; Maheshwari et al., 2013; : @u
¼
kc av ðC f C s Þa
@t qs
Zhang et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2017a). Most of these studies high-
lighted the effect of matrix on the propagation of wormholes. ( @ðuC
fÞ
There were only a few studies on the effects of widely distributed @t
þ rðUC f Þ ¼ rðuDe rC f Þ
@u
ð4Þ
fractures in the carbonate reservoirs, which mainly paid attention @t
¼0
to the single simple fracture (Szymczak and Anthony, 2012). How-
ever, fracture geometry could be highly complex due to the non- where U is the Darcy velocity vector, m/s; k is the formation perme-
uniform distribution of ground stress in space and the long-term ability, m2; l is the acid dynamic viscosity, Pas; P is the pressure,
geological transformation of carbonate reservoirs in the burial pro- Pa; u is the formation porosity; t is the reaction time, s; Cf is the
cess. It requires specific attention to investigate the effects of the hydrogen ion concentration in the rock pores, mol/m3; De is the dif-
single and multiple fractures with different geometry on the prop- fusion tensor of hydrogen ion, m2/s; kc is the local mass transfer
agation of wormholes. coefficient, m/s; av is the pore area per unit volume of rocks,
In the reservoir, the fracture refers to the region with a porosity m2/m3; Cs is the hydrogen ion concentration on the rock surface,
of nearly 1, whose width is small compared to the length and mol/m3; a is mass of the rock that can be dissolved by per volume
height. Generally, along the direction of length, the pressure gradi- of acid, kg/mol; qs is rock density, kg/m3.
ent of acid is large and the flow velocity is fast. It is the main prop- The physical parameters of rocks is shown in Eq. (5) (Panga
agation direction of the wormhole. Along the direction of height, et al., 2005).
8
the pressure gradient of acid is small, and it has little effect on > ð1u0 Þ 2b
>
>
k
¼ uu ðu Þ
the wormhole. Two dimensional and three dimensional models > k
< 0 0 u0 ð1uÞ

ð1u0 Þ b
are often used to study the growth process of wormholes. Com- rp
¼ ðu
u0 ð1uÞÞ
ð5Þ
>
> r0
pared with the three dimensional model, the two dimensional >
> av
: ¼ uu ðu 0 ð1uÞ
b
model not only considers the relationship between the fracture a0 uð1u ÞÞ
0 0
and the injection direction of the acid, but also reduces the inter-
ference of the third dimension and greatly reduces the calculation where u (0 < u < 1), k, rp, and av are porosity, permeability, pore
of the model. And it can simulate the effect of many kinds of frac- radius, and specific surface area, respectively; u0, k0, r0, and a0 are
tures in the reservoir on the propagation of the wormholes. Based initial mean values of above parameters, respectively; b is a con-
on the two dimensional two-scale continuum model, the fracture stant associated with the pore structure, where b = 1 in this study.
in this paper is regarded as the matrix with certain porosity. By The diffusion tensor and mass transfer coefficient is shown in
comparing Darcy formula with the laminar flow formula, the value Eq. (6) (Gupta and Balakotaiah, 2001).
of porosity is determined to be 0.999. In this way, the influence of DeX ¼ ðaos þ kx  PeP ÞDm ; DeT ¼ ðaos þ kT  PeP ÞDm
fracture geometry on wormhole propagation can be studied. Note   0:5 1 
m Sh 2r p Rep ð6Þ
that all the mathematical formulas in this paper are solved by finite kc ¼ D2r p
¼ Dm
2r p
Sh1 þ 0:35  x
Sc3
element software, Comsol Multiphysics.
where aos is a constant associated with the pore structure, which is
0.5 in this paper; kx = 0.5 and kT = 0.1, which are obtained by the
2. Mathematical model packed-bed of spheres; Pep is the Péclet number; Rep is the pore-
scale Reynolds number; Sc is the Schmidt number.
2.1. Acid flow in the matrix
2.2. Acid flow in the fracture
When the acid is injected into the formation at a certain rate,
there is a mass transfer of hydrogen ions from the pore fluid to The flow of acid in the fracture is different from that in the
the carbonate rock surface under the action of macroscopic motion matrix. The former is free flow controlled by the Navier-Stokes
(convection) and concentration gradient (diffusion). In this mass equation, while the latter is the porous media seepage controlled
transfer process, the formation porosity is altered. To simulate this by Darcy’s equation. Because the geometry of fractures will change
process, the paper made the following assumptions: (1) the forma- constantly after contacting acid, it is very complicated to couple
tion is saturated with fluid, and the fluid is incompressible; (2) the the Navier-Stokes equation with Darcy equation.
viscosity of the pore fluid is close to that of the acid, the influences Some scholars have proposed different models to the prob-
of gravity and capillary forces are ignorable. lems of free flow and porous media seepage. They include the
The flow of acid in the formation is controlled by Darcy’s equa- fracture network model (Dong et al., 2002), pseudo-fracture
tion (Eq. (1)), while the pressure distribution is controlled by the model (Li et al., 2016; Kalia and Balakotaiah, 2007), discrete-
continuum equation of the incompressible fluid (Eq. (2)). As for fracture model (Liu et al., 2017b), and so on. The fracture net-
the distribution of hydrogen ions in the fluid, it is controlled by work model assumes that acid flows only along the fracture,
126 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

and the leakage coefficient is used to describe the flow of acid in 7000
the matrix. It cannot be used to describe complicated fracture
systems near wellbore. The pseudo-fracture model regards the 6000
fracture as an area with high porosity and treats the fracture
5000
and matrix in the same way. The method is simple in concept
and can effectively simulate the dissolution process of in frac- 4000
tured formation. However, it has high requirements for com-

k/k0
puter memory and operation ability. The discrete-fracture 3000
model deals with the fracture and matrix in different ways. It
assumes that the fracture aperture remains unchanged, the acid 2000
will only increase the porosity of the adjacent matrix. After a
1000
series of transformations, the equation is solved. This method
has high computational efficiency, but the processing method 0
is rather complicated and requires special skills. 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
It was noticed that although the classical two-scale contin- φ
uum model only studied the wormholes in the matrix (Panga
et al., 2005), as the regions with porosity close to 1, the role Fig. 2. Dimensionless permeability variation with porosity.
of wormholes in the matrix was almost the same as that of frac-
tures. The two-scale continuum model regards the wormhole as
an area of considerable permeability and uses Darcy’s law to
be considered as laminar flow. In this paper, the fractures are
describe the flow of fluid in the wormhole, which means that
regarded as thin circular tubes, and acid flow rate in them is inves-
fractures can also be treated in this way. Conversely, if the fluid
tigated using the laminar flow equation of the circular tubes.
in the fracture must be considered strictly in accordance with
free flow, so should the fluid in the wormhole. This dynamic DPpD4 DPA D2 DPA
coupling is obviously quite difficult. Therefore, the pseudo- Q¼ ¼  ¼ K ð7Þ
128lL lL 32 lL
fracture model is adopted in the paper, and the fracture is
regarded as a region with considerable permeability. In order where Q is the flow rate, cm3/s; DP is the driving pressure, 0.1 MPa;
to speed up the calculation, the fracture area which has a great D is the fracture diameter, cm; A is the cross-sectional area, cm2; L is
influence on the pressure field is subdivided intensively, and the the fracture length, cm.
matrix is subdivided by coarse mesh. The triangle grid subdivi- The flow rate calculated by Darcy’s equation is as follows.
sion is as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 2 shows the dimensionless permeability (k/k0) calculated DPA
Q¼ k ð8Þ
with Eq. (5) as a function of porosity, which suggests the very lL
rapid increasing permeability with the porosity. When the poros-
Therefore, the equivalent permeability corresponds to the frac-
ity approaches 1, the permeability tends to be infinite, which is
ture with a width of 0.2 cm is K = D2/32 = 125  103 lm2.
consistent with the infinite conductivity of fractures. In the fol-
By substituting the fracture porosity umax = 0.999 into Eq. (5),
lowing part, attention will be paid to figure out the proper
we can get the permeability k.
porosity umax, corresponding to which the flow resistance calcu-
lated by the free flow model is similar to that calculated by umax umax ð1  u0 Þ 2b
Darcy’s law. k ¼ k0 ð Þ ¼ 798  103 lm2 ð9Þ
u0 u0 ð1  umax Þ
Generally the flow velocity of acid in the formation is very slow,
and the Reynolds number is also small. Therefore, the acid flow can K and k are of the same order of magnitude, indicating the rea-
sonability to consider a 0.2 cm wide fracture as the region with a
porosity of 0.999 from the perspective of flow resistance. For the
fracture whose width is more than 0.2 cm, the width is not the fac-
tor that limits its conductivity because the permeability is quite
high relative to the matrix. So the fracture can be treated as the
width is 0.2 cm.

2.3. Initial boundary conditions

The initial conditions are:

P = 0, Cf = 0, u = u0 ± 0.05.

The initial porosity field is as shown in Fig. 3.

The boundary conditions are:

@P
 lk @x
¼ U 0 , Cf = C0 when x = 0;
@C
P = P0, @xf ¼ 0 when  = L;
n  U ¼ 0, n  ð/De  rC f þ UC f Þ ¼ 0 when y = 0 and W.

2.4. Model parameters

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram about grid subdivision. The parameters of this model are shown in Table 1.
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143 127

Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of a straight fracture.

Table 2
Straight fracture parameters.

Parameter Value Unit Actual meaning

xf 5 cm Horizontal ordinate of fracture center
yf 5 cm Vertical ordinate of fracture center
Fig. 3. The initial porosity field. Lf 3 cm Fracture length
Wf 0.2 cm Fracture width
h / ° Angle between fracture and injection direction
3. Results and analysis

3.1. The effect of single fracture geometry on the propagation of
wormhole
Previous physical simulation experiments and numerical simu-
lation studies suggest the sequential emergence of face dissolution,
wormhole dissolution, and uniform dissolution patterns with the
increase of flow velocity (Kalia and Balakotaiah, 2009; Liu et al.,
2017a; Ma et al., 2017). With the model parameters in this paper,
when the flow velocity is 0.05 cm/s, the breakthrough pore volume
is the smallest. However, there are a large number of fractures in
the actual reservoir, and their location, length, width, shape, and
number may affect the dissolution results. The effect of single frac-
ture geometry on the wormhole propagation is investigated and
elaborated below.
3.1.1. Straight fractures
Tectonic stress is the main cause of fractures. When the direc-
tion of ground stress coincides with that of the fracture, the ground
stress has a secondary transformation effect on natural fractures,
which is conducive to maintaining the open state and efficient
diversion capability of natural fractures. Conversely, the natural
fractures will be suppressed by the ground stress, which reduces
the conductivity. The fractures in carbonate reservoirs are mostly
modified by the maximum horizontal principal stress, and most
of them are parallel fractures. However, due to the complexity of
the ground stress distribution, there are a large number of high-
angle and vertical fractures in carbonate reservoirs. It is necessary
to study the influence of fracture inclination on the propagation of
wormholes.
This section simplifies the fracture to be straight fracture with a
certain inclination, and studies the relationship between the
wormhole propagation trajectory and the fracture inclination. In
order to eliminate the influence of the calculation domain bound-
aries on the results, the fracture location is selected in the center of
the domain, and the fracture inclination is varied to study the
influence of inclination on the propagation of the wormhole (see
Fig. 4 and Table 2).

Table 1
Model parameters.

Parameter Value Unit Actual meaning Description

L 10 cm Calculation domain length Model setting value
W 10 cm Calculation domain width
aos 0.5 Pore structure constant
Sh1 3.36 Asymptotic Sherwood number
umax 0.999 Fracture porosity
P0 0.1 MPa Outlet pressure
kx 0.5 Transverse pore structure coefficient Theoretical value calculated by the packed-bed of spheres
kT 0.1 Longitudinal pore structure coefficient
qL 1.2 g/cm3 Acid density Experimentally measured acid property parameters
l 1 mPas Acid dynamic viscosity
C0 4.4 mol/L Initial acid concentration
Dm 3  109 m2/s Molecular diffusion coefficient
ks 2  103 cm/s Dissolution rate constant
a 50 g/mol Acid capacity number
u0 0.20 / Initial mean porosity Rock properties measured by the experiments
4u 0.05 / Porosity change
k0 10 103 lm2 Initial mean permeability
a0 100 cm2/cm3 Initial mean specific surface area
r0 5  104 cm Initial mean pore radius
qs 2.7 g/cm3 Rock density
128 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

(a) 0° (b) 15° (c) 30°

(d) 45° (e) 60° (f) 90°

Fig. 5. Porosity fields corresponding to fractures of different inclinations.

As can be seen from Fig. 5, when the fracture inclination is 0° 12 30

(parallel to the injection direction), the main wormhole propagates
along the direction of the fracture at the inlet, and those worm- 10 20 PV
holes in the other directions are short, which suggest a strong 10
δ
attracting effect on the acid by the fracture parallel to the injection 8
direction. As the inclination increases, wormholes in the other 0

δ %
PV

directions also well propagate, and the main wormhole along the
fracture direction tends to branch off. In the extreme case, where
the fracture is perpendicular to the injection direction, it can be
observed that the wormholes in the other directions greatly prop-
agate at the inlet, while the main wormhole branches off at the
outlet. It indicates that the fracture perpendicular to the acid injec-
tion direction disperses the acid, forming multiple channels.
In order to further describe the effect of fracture inclination on
the propagation of wormholes, the breakthrough pore volume
curves corresponding to different inclinations are plotted. It can
be compared with the breakthrough pore volume of the fracture-
free formation so as to calculate the degree of change, d, which is
influenced by fracture inclinations.
PV  PV 0
d¼  100% ð10Þ
PV 0
where PV0 is the breakthrough pore volume corresponding to the
fracture-free formation.
Fig. 6 shows that the breakthrough pore volume curve is
approximately symmetrical about h = 0°, where the breakthrough
pore volume reaches the smallest. It is 29.16% smaller than the
breakthrough pore volume of the fracture-free formation. As the
absolute value of the inclination increases, the breakthrough pore
volume increases, and the accelerating effect of fractures on the
acid penetrating the formation weakens. In the extreme case
(h = ±90°), instead of accelerating the breakthrough, the fractures
slow down it. All these are related to the development mechanism
6
-10
4
-20
2 -30
0 -40
-90 -60 -30 0 30 60 90
θo
Fig. 6. Breakthrough pore volume and degree of change corresponding to fractures
of different inclinations.
of wormholes, which is mainly attributed to the uneven dissolu-
tion of the rock by acid. As for the uneven dissolution, it is mainly
related to the pressure field and velocity field of the heterogeneous
formation. Parallel to the acid injection direction, the pressure gra-
dient is large and the flow velocity is fast, which are favorable for
wormhole propagation. Meanwhile, perpendicular to the acid
injection direction, the pressure gradient is small and the flow
velocity is slow, which mainly determine the diameter of the
wormhole. Therefore, slightly inclined straight fractures can con-
tribute to a more concentrated velocity field, inducing and acceler-
ating the propagation of wormholes at the inlet (as shown in
Fig. 7), while largely inclined straight fractures disperse the acid,
which hinders the wormhole propagation and thus slows down
the breakthrough (as shown in Fig. 8).
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143 129

(a) porosity field (b) velocity field

Fig. 7. Porosity field and velocity field corresponding to parallel fracture.

(a) porosity field (b) velocity field

Fig. 8. Porosity and velocity fields corresponding to perpendicular fracture.

As can be observed in Fig. 6, the variation of breakthrough pore
volume with fracture inclination seems to coincide with the cosine
curve. Therefore, this study assumes that fractures of different
inclinations can be decomposed into two components. One is par-
allel to the acid injection direction with the length of Lcos(h),
while the other is perpendicular to the acid injection direction with
the length of Lsin(h). The former one can concentrate fluids to
accelerate the breakthrough, while the latter one disperses fluids,
thus slowing down the breakthrough. These two components com-
monly determine the actual impact of fractures on the penetration
of acid through the formation.
To verify the above hypothesis, we artificially make a parallel
fracture with the length of Lcos(h) and a perpendicular fracture
with the length of Lsin(h) at the same locations. Then their influ-
ences on the degree of change are respectively compared with that
of corresponding straight fractures, as shown in Figs. 12 and 13.
It can be seen from Fig. 9 that the curves of parallel and straight
fractures are quite similar in the case of h < 60°, in both of which d
has a good linear relationship with Lcos(h). Fig. 11 also shows that
wormholes emerge in all the parallel fractures with different
lengths, and the wormhole diameter is negatively related to the
fracture length. This means that when the absolute value of the
fracture inclination is not very large, it is reasonable to consider
the straight fractures as parallel fractures with length of Lcos(h)
to determine the breakthrough pore volume.
The effect of perpendicular fractures on the propagation of
wormholes is different from that of parallel fractures. Due to the
dispersion of acid by the perpendicular fractures, wormhole prop-
agation slows down before contacting the fracture, and the dis-
solved volume at the inlet is enhanced. However, after contacting
the fracture, the flow path of the main wormhole suddenly
expands, and consequently the acid flow disperses. As a result,
130 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

30 the main wormhole generally braches off along the two ends and
Straight fracture θ<0 the middle of the fracture, which results in the emergence of mul-
20 Straight fracture θ>0 tiple wormholes and thus increases the randomness of the worm-
Parallel fracture
hole propagation path. Therefore, it is difficult to clarify the
10
complicated relationship between perpendicular fracture length
Lsin(h) and d, which is also demonstrated in Figs. 10 and 12.
It is found by plotting influences of parallel, perpendicular and
δ %

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
straight fractures on degree of change (Fig. 13) that the straight
fractures can be approximated as parallel fractures with the length
-10 of Lcos(h) when the inclination h is less than 60°. However, when
the inclination is large, the straight fractures have to be considered
-20 as the combination of the two kinds of fractures.

-30
L·cos(θ) cm 3.1.2. Arc fractures
Obviously, fractures in the formation cannot be entirely linear.
Fig. 9. Influences of parallel and straight fractures on degree of change. They are actually often tortuous due to the non-uniform distribu-
tion of the ground stress, which can be quantitatively characterized
by curvature. In order to simplify the model, this section assumes
30
the fracture curvature to be a constant, while two tangent arcs
20 with the central angle of 90° are used to represent the straight frac-
ture. The degree of change with inclination are respectively plotted
10 for the arc and straight fractures to identify whether they have
consistent influence on wormhole propagation (see Fig. 14 and
0 Table 3).
δ %

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 As can be seen from Fig. 15, the degree of change with arc frac-
-10 ture inclination is similar to that with straight fracture inclination,
although the former one is more complex. The inclination corre-
-20
sponding to the minimum value in the arc fracture case is 30°,
while that in the straight fracture case is 0°. In order to explain this
-30 Straight fracture θ<0 difference, their porosity fields corresponding to inclinations of
Straight fracture θ>0 30°, 15° and 0° are respectively compared.
-40
L·sin(θ) cm Perpendicular fracture Fig. 16 shows that for the fractures with inclinations of 30° to
0°, the wormhole always first connect the inlet end of the fracture
Fig. 10. Influences of perpendicular and straight fractures on degree of change. and then follows the fracture. The fracture with inclination of 0°

(a) 0 cm (b) 0.776 cm (c) 1.5 cm

(d) 2.121 cm (e) 2.598 cm (f) 3 cm

Fig. 11. Porosity fields of parallel fractures of different lengths.
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143 131

(a) 0 cm (b) 0.776 cm (c) 1.5 cm

(d) 2.121 cm (e) 2.598 cm (f) 3 cm

Fig. 12. Porosity fields of perpendicular fractures of different lengths.

30 Table 3
Parameters of arc fractures.
20 Parameter Value Unit Actual meaning
xf 5 cm Horizontal ordinate of fracture tangent point
10 yf 5 cm Vertical ordinate of fracture tangent point
LAB 3 cm Length of segment AB
0 Wf 0.2 cm Fracture width
pffiffiffi
δ %

0 20 40 60 80 R 3=2 2 cm Fracture curvature radius

h / ° Angle between segment AB and acid injection
-10
direction

-20
Straight fracture θ<0

Straight fracture θ>0 30

-30
Parallel fracture
20
-40 Perpendicular fracture
θo 10

Fig. 13. Influences of parallel, perpendicular and straight fractures on degree of

0
-90 -60 -30 0 30 60 90
δ %

change. -10
-20
-30
-40 Arc fracture
Linear fracture
-50
θo

Fig. 15. Degree of change with arc and straight fracture inclinations.

Fig. 14. Schematic diagram of an arc fracture.
has the largest projection along the injection direction, and there-
fore it has the strongest acceleration effect on the breakthrough.
For arc fractures, acid does not necessarily flow into the fracture
from point A because the tangent direction of the fracture is not
the same as the end-to-end line AB. Instead, the acid tends to flow
into the fracture from a point where the acid injection direction is
132 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

(a) arc fracture with inclination of -30° (b) straight fracture with inclination of -30°

(c) arc fracture with inclination of -15° (d) straight fracture with inclination of -15°

(e) arc fracture with inclination of 0° (f) straight fracture with inclination of 0°
Fig. 16. Porosity fields of arc and straight fractures with different inclinations.
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143 133

tangent to the fracture direction, which can be verified by the acid

flow-out direction that is tangent to the fracture direction. There-
fore, arc and straight fractures have different influences on the
wormhole propagation.

3.1.3. Circular and polygonal fractures

Abundant long fractures in carbonate reservoirs often interact
with each other to form fracture networks. Moreover, these frac-
tures are generally influenced by tectonics and karstification
(Wang et al., 2014). Therefore, there are some circular and polygo-
nal fractures in the carbonate reservoirs. To facilitate the study,
these fractures are first assumed to be in the form of well symmet-
rical circles, and their influence on wormhole propagation is inves-
Fig. 17. Schematic diagram of a circular fracture.
tigated (see Fig. 17 and Table 4).
Table 4 As can be seen from Figs. 18 and 19, the acid penetration into
Circular fracture parameters. the formation can be divided into three stages: (1) before
Parameter Value Unit Actual meaning contacting the fracture, acid is attracted by the fracture; (2) after
xf 5 cm Horizontal ordinate of circular fracture center contacting the fracture, acid preferentially flows along the high-
yf 5 cm Vertical ordinate of circular fracture center permeability channel, and the hydrogen ion concentration rises
Wf 0.2 cm Fracture width rapidly; (3) after the fracture is saturated with acid, the acid flows
D 3 cm Fracture diameter along the right circular arc of the fracture, forming radial

(a) 180 s (b) 220 s (c) 260 s

Fig. 18. Porosity fields corresponding to the circular fracture at different times.

(a) 180 s (b) 195 s (c) 200 s

(d) 210 s (e) 220 s (f) 260 s

Fig. 19. Concentration fields corresponding to the circular fracture at different times.
134 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

In order to verify the effect of the geometry of the closed frac-

ture near the outlet on wormhole propagation, the right end of
the circular fracture is replaced with a rectangle (Fig. 20). Consis-
tent with the expected situation, the geometry of the right end of
the composite fracture directly affects the propagation trajectory
of the subsequent wormhole. Figs. 21 and 22 show that the inflec-
tion point near the fracture outlet is the propagation point of the
subsequent wormhole, there emerge X-shaped wormholes in both
sides of the polygon fractures, and there occur radial wormholes
along the normal direction of the arc fractures.

3.2. The effect of multiple fractures geometry on the propagation of

wormhole
Fig. 20. Schematic diagram of a composite fracture.

In Section 3.1, the effect of single fracture geometry on the

wormholes. It can be deduced that the part near the inlet of the
fracture is only the channel for acid, while geometry of the part
near the outlet of the fracture has a great influence on the propa-
gation trajectory of the subsequent wormholes.
wormhole was discussed. However, there are many fractures with
different shapes and sizes in carbonate reservoirs. As high-
permeability channels, these fractures affect the growth of
wormholes together. It is essential to study the influence of multi-
ple fracture geometry on the propagation of wormhole. Among the

(a) 230 s (b) 260 s (c) 300 s

Fig. 21. Porosity fields corresponding to the composite fracture at different times.

(a) 210 s (b) 222 s (c) 230 s

(d) 240 s (e) 260 s (f) 300 s

Fig. 22. Concentration fields corresponding to the composite fracture at different times.
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143 135

35

30

25

20

Size cm
15

10
Calculation domain
5
Control domain

0
1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
Length of fracture cm

Fig. 25. Sizes of actual calculation and control domains corresponding to fractures
of different lengths.
Fig. 23. Flow field around the parallel fracture with a length of 3 cm.

14
9

12 8.5

8
Size of control domain (cm)

Size of control domain (cm)

10
7.5

8 7

6.5
6 6
Calculation domain 10×10 cm
5.5 Straight fracture with a length of 3 cm
4
Calculation domain 15×15 cm
5
Calculation domain 20×20 cm Arc fracture with a length of 3 cm
2 4.5
Calculation domain 30×30 cm
4
0 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5
cos(θ)
Length of fracture (cm)
Fig. 26. Curve of control domain size of straight and arc fracture varying with
Fig. 24. Curve of control domain size variation with calculation domain size and inclination angle.
fracture length.

factors affecting the wormhole propagation, the flow behavior of

acid is undoubtedly the most important. The flow field can well
show this flow behavior. Therefore, this section mainly uses the
flow field to analyze the role of multiple fractures in the formation. Fracture B

3.2.1. The control domain of fractures

In order to study the influence of multiple fractures on worm-
hole propagation, it is necessary to define the influence area of sin-
gle fracture on fluid. For simplicity, we first observe the flow field
Fracture A
around the parallel fracture.
The black lines in Fig. 23 are streamlines, and the density of the
streamlines indicates the velocity of the flow. From the flow field, it
can be seen that the streamlines inside the red wire frame bend
obviously towards the fracture, while the streamlines outside are
nearly parallel. This means that the acid in the red wire frame is Fracture C
attracted by the fracture, and the acid in other areas is hardly
affected. Therefore, it can be considered that the actual influence
area of the fracture on acid is the red wire frame area in Fig. 23.
It is named as the control domain of fractures.
Next, the size of the calculation domain and the length of the
fracture are changed respectively, and the change of the control
domain is studied. The results are shown in Fig. 24. Fig. 27. Distribution position of three parallel fractures.
136 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

(a) 180s (b) 260s (c) 440s

Fig. 28. Porosity field at different time when there are three distant fractures in formation.

(a) 0s (b) 260s (c) 440s

Fig. 29. Flow field at different time when there are three distant fractures in formation.

(a) 180s (b) 320s (c) 580s

Fig. 30. Porosity field at different time when there is one fracture in formation.

As can be seen from Figs. 24 and 25, the size of the control
domain of parallel fractures is different in different calculation
domains. The size of the calculation domain should be set at least
five times the length of the fracture in order to simulate the role of
the fracture in the actual formation. There is a good linear relation-
ship between the size of the control domain and the length of frac-
ture, and the size of the control domain is about three times of the
length of fracture.
In Fig. 26, the control domain size of straight and arc fracture
has a good linear relationship with the cosine of the inclination
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143 137

(a) 220s (b) 320s (c) 580s

Fig. 31. Porosity field at different time when there are three fractures in formation.

(a) 0s (b) 320s (c) 580s

Fig. 32. Flow field at different time when there are three fractures in formation.

(a) 220s (b) 320s (c) 520s

Fig. 33. Porosity field at different time when there is three parallel fractures in formation.

angle, which proves again the conclusion of Section 3.1. Straight
and arc fracture with inclination angle less than 60 degrees can
be equivalent to parallel fracture of corresponding length.
From Figs. 23–25, it can be found that although the length,
inclination angle and shape of fractures in the actual formation
are different, the influence of fractures on acid is local, and the size
of control domain is proportional to Lcos(h). Considering this phe-
nomenon, the following questions are naturally raised. If there is
no overlap between the control domains of the two fractures, can
we analyze the fracture separately without considering the mutual
138 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

interference between the fractures? On the contrary, must we con-

sider the joint effect of two fractures on acid? This will be studied
in Section 3.2.2.

Fracture A
Fracture C Fracture D 3.2.2. The interaction between fractures
In this section, the size of calculation domain is set to
Fracture E
30  30 cm, and the size of fracture is set to 3  0.2 cm. The inter-
action between fractures is studied when the fracture is located
outside and inside the control domain of other fracture,
Fracture F respectively.

(1) Fracture is located outside the control domain of other

Fracture B fracture
Fracture G
Section 3.2.1 shows that the control domain size of parallel frac-
ture with a length of 3 cm is 9 cm. Therefore, three parallel frac-
tures are set at different locations with spacing of more than
9 cm to study whether there is interference between the fractures
which are far apart. Fig. 27 shows the distribution of fractures.
Figs. 28 and 29 show the porosity and flow fields.
Fig. 34. Distribution position of multiple fractures.

(a) 160s (b) 190s

(c) 270s (d) 500s

Fig. 35. Porosity field at different time when there are multiple fractures in formation.
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143
As shown in Fig. 28, three short wormholes are formed at the
entrance. One of the wormholes connectes fracture A and contin-
ues to grow, but fails to connect fracture B and C. This can be
explained by Fig. 29. Fig. 29(a) shows that there are some control
domains near the three fractures. Because fracture A is closest to
the entrance, wormhole first occurs and propagates along the frac-
ture. Fracture B and C are far away from the fracture A, and their
control domain cannot cover the existing wormhole. Therefore,
the subsequent growth trajectory of wormholes is hardly affected
by these two fractures. In order to verify this rule, only fracture
A is retained, and it is found that the growth trajectory of worm-
holes is basically unchanged (as shown in Fig. 30).
(2) Fracture is located inside the control domain of other
fracture
The position of fracture B is moved towards fracture A to make
it inside the control domain of fracture A, and the inclination angle
of fracture B also increases. Porosity and flow field are shown in
Figs. 31 and 32.
(a) 0s
(c) 270s
Fig. 36. Flow field at different time when there are multiple fractures in formation.
139
The streamline distribution between fractures A and B in Fig. 32
(b) shows that when the two fractures are close to each other, the
flow behavior of acid is affected by both control domains. After the
wormhole connects fracture A, it tends to grow towards fracture B.
The growth path of wormhole is affected by the geometry of frac-
ture B near the distance, but has little relation with fracture C
whose control area is far away. This can be verified from Figs. 31
and 33.
3.2.3. The effect of multiple fractures geometry on the wormhole and
its application
Firstly, the fractures with different shapes, lengths, inclination
angles and spacing are set in the calculation domain of
50  50 cm, and the acidification process of fractured formation
is simulated. Fig. 34 shows the distribution of fractures.
Figs. 35 and 36 show that all the fractures in the calculation
domain form local control domains. The control domains of frac-
tures A and B are closest to the entrance, and acid enters these
two fractures preferentially to form wormholes. Subsequently,
fractures C, D and E closer to the wormhole become the channels
(b) 190s
(d) 500s
140 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

in turn. The flow field of Fig. 36(c) shows that there are concen-
trated streamlines near the fracture A, C, D and E. Acid flows
directly into the formation in this direction, while the presence
of fracture F and G has little effect on the growth of subsequent
wormholes.
From the above acidification process, we can get the following
understanding. (1) The formation position of initial wormhole is
determined by the control domain closest to the entrance, but
not by the fractures in the distant formation, unless the distant
fractures are so long that their control domains cover the entrance.
(2) Wormholes and fractures have similar control domains. Once a
wormhole becomes the dominant channel, the growth of other
wormholes inside the control domain of this wormhole almost
ceases. And the subsequent growth of wormhole is determined
by the control domain of surrounding fractures.
At present, carbonate reservoirs often contain complex frac-
tures and require long acidizing distance. The increase of the size
and complexity of the corresponding mathematical model will
bring great challenges to the computer memory and the conver-
gence of the model. Most of the acidification models are often
small in size, and it is difficult to meet the actual acidification
design requirements. From the previous analysis, it can be found
that the fractures that determine the growth trajectory of
wormholes are those whose control domains can cover the tip of

(a) partition area

(b) step one (c) step two

Fig. 37. Schematic diagram of calculation process.

Fig. 38. Distribution position of multiple fractures in calculation case.

 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143 141

Fig. 39. Mesh partition graph obtained by conventional calculation method.

(a) 400s

(b) 810s
Fig. 40. Porosity field obtained by conventional calculation method.
142 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143

(a) part one (b) part two

Fig. 41. Mesh partition graph obtained by step-by-step calculation method.

wormholes. Therefore, there is no need to consider all fractures in are recorded. Then the entrance boundary of the second part is set
the formation. A natural idea is that for large-scale models with at the intersection of the divider line and the wormhole, which
complex fractures, the method of step-by-step calculation can be only simulates the growth process of the wormhole in the second
used to reduce the computation cost. The specific ideas are as fol- part. Because the acid flowing through the wormhole only slowly
lows (see Fig. 37). increases its diameter, the track of the wormhole in the first part
According to the initial flow field of the whole calculation will not change significantly after the acid reaches the divider line.
domain, the position with less fracture control domain is selected The wormhole trajectories in whole calculation domain can be
to divide the calculation domain into several parts. For the sake observed by merging the propagation trajectories in the two parts.
of explaining conveniently, we divide the calculation domain into In this way, we can simulate the growth process of wormholes in
two parts. Firstly, the growth of wormholes in the first part is sim- large-scale formation with a small amount of computation.
ulated. When the wormholes grow to the divider line, the flow rate The following is a calculation case. The calculation domain size
and concentration of acid, the location and diameter of wormholes is 80  40 cm, and there are 14 fractures (see Fig. 38). The growth
process of wormholes is simulated separately by conventional cal-
culation and step-by-step calculation method (see Figs. 39 and 41).
Table 5
Recorded information.
(1) Conventional calculation method
Name Value Remarks (2) Step-by-step calculation method
Time 350 s
Number of wormholes 2 The calculation domain is divided into two parts at x = 40 cm,
Flow velocity 15  U0 U0 is the inlet velocity and the growth of wormholes in the two parts is simulated in turn
Acid concentration 0.8  C0 C0 is the inlet concentration
(see Table 5).

(a) part one T=370s (b) part two T=850s

Fig. 42. Porosity field obtained by step-by-step calculation method.
 N. Qi et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 198 (2019) 124–143
Compared with Figs. 40 and 42, it can be found that the worm-
hole trajectory and acid injection time calculated by the two meth-
ods are close. The mesh partition graph shows that the step-by-
step calculation method has the advantages of fewer grids and fas-
ter calculation speed, and is very suitable for simulating large-scale
formation acidification.
4. Conclusions
(1) The parallel fractures can concentrate fluids and accelerate
the acid penetrating the formation, while the perpendicular
ones will disperse fluids, thereby slowing down the break-
through. The effect of straight fractures and arc fractures
on wormholes are similar. When the inclination angle is less
than 60°, straight fracture and arc fracture can be regarded
as parallel fracture of corresponding length. When the incli-
nation angle is greater than 60°, they can be regarded as
superposition of parallel fracture and perpendicular fracture.
(2) As for the circular and polygonal fracture, only the part near
the outlet of the fracture influences the propagation trajec-
tory of subsequent wormholes, which tend to continue prop-
agating at the inflection point. When the outlet of the
fracture is polygonal, X-shaped wormholes form at both
sides; when the outlet of the fracture is circular, radial
wormholes propagate along the normal direction of the arc
fracture.
(3) The analysis of flow field shows that the influence of frac-
tures on acid is local, and there is a control domain of about
3Lcos(h) around the fractures. The acid inside the control
domain flows centrally to the fracture, while the acid outside
is almost unaffected. When there is no intersection of con-
trol domains of multiple fractures, there is no interference
between them. When the control domains of multiple frac-
tures intersect, the acid flowing through one fracture tends
to approach another fracture.
(4) The fractures that determine the growth trajectory of worm-
holes are those whose control domains can cover the tip of
wormholes. There is no need to consider all fractures in
the formation. Based on this conclusion, the step-by-step
calculation method proposed in this paper has the advan-
tages of good simulation effect and less computation, and
is suitable for acidizing large-scale formation with complex
fracture network.
Declaration of interest
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Key
Technologies Research and Development Program of China during
the 13th Five-Year Plan Period (Project No. 2017ZX005030005),
143
Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China
(ZR2017MEE073), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (14CX05019A). Their sponsorship is gratefully
acknowledged.
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