Effect of porosity and confining pressure on hydrulic fracturing mechanism using experimental tests

Hydraulic fracturing process is one of the most important technologies that can be used to increase the exploitation and production from low permeability oil and gas fields.Due to the high cost of hydraulic failure, the necessary and sufficient studies on the properties of rock and fluid and the field of stresses in the depths of the earth should be done before performing the operation.For this purpose, in this study, using artificial samples in the laboratory, the effect of porosity on fracture pressure, type of crack and also the effect of different lateral pressures on fracture operation were investigated.The studies showed that with increasing lateral pressure, the fracture pressure increases and at high lateral pressure and the crack deviates from the vertical position. Also, with increasing porosity for samples R10, R30, R20 and R40 by %15, %19, %20 and %13, respectively, the hydraulic failure pressure at 2 MPa compressive pressure decreases by %20, %22, %37 and 19% At 3 Mpa decreases by %25, %33, %20 and 12%, and at 5 MPa decreases by %20, %25, %35 and %20. At higher lateral pressures, this effect is less.