Numerical Modeling of Particle Bridging in a T-Shaped Fracture with the Resolved CFD–DEM Coupling

Particle bridging is ubiquitous in many fields of oil and gas field development engineering, such as fracture plugging for lost circulation control and proppant bridging as well as temporary plugging agent bridging in hydraulic fracturing. In this work, the resolved computational fluid dynamics coupled with discrete element method (Resolved CFD–DEM) is used to capture the formation and evolution of particle bridging structures in a T-shaped fracture, and to study the effects of inlet particle concentration, fracture geometry and friction coefficient of particle on the particle bridging behaviors in the T-shaped fracture. The results indicate that both threshold particle concentration and critical particle concentration are two important parameters to describe particle bridging and are significantly influenced by friction coefficient of particle and fracture geometry. Three-particle arch structure is the main particle bridging type when the ratio of particle size to fracture width is 0.5. With the increase in friction coefficient of particle, the mean formation time of particle bridging decreases. In this work, high-resolution numerical modeling of the particle bridging in a T-shaped fracture is realized based on the resolved computational fluid dynamics coupled with discrete element method, and can be used to provide theoretical guidance for temporary plugging and diversion fracturing and lost circulation control in fractured reservoirs.