SPE 153805

Experiments on Pulse Power Fracturing

Ronghai Mao (Alstom)
1
, Hans de Pater (Fenix Consulting Delft)
1
, Jean Francois Leon (Galtech), Joe Fram,
Stein Storslett, Russ Ewy, Joe Stefani, (Chevron Energy Technology Company)
Copyright 2012, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Western Regional Meeting held in Bakersfield, California, USA, 1923 March 2012.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.


Abstract
Pressure pulses generated by sparks in water-filled boreholes generate hydraulic fractures in the dynamic regime.
Using triaxially stressed model tests, we investigated the potential for multiple fracturing and the expected size of
the fractures. In the tests, we determined the power level at which the pulse initiates a fracture and the final
fracture geometry after applying many pulses. A dynamic fracture model is used to explain the attenuation of the
pulses. Dynamic fracturing is still poorly understood. Lab tests are needed to benchmark simulation codes that
predict fracture length and multiple fractures.
In the tests, we varied the number of notches in the wellbore, stress and rock type. Tests on blocks of cement and
oil shale show that pulses of a few kJoule can generate pulses up to 50 MPa that induce multiple fractures and
create fairly large fractures, depending on rock type. Bi-wing fractures were generated without notching the
borehole. With 4-8 notches the fractures initiated from the notches. Attenuation of the pulses was found to depend
mainly on turbulent friction in the fractures.
Pulse power has the advantage that it can generate many pulses in the same zone and can be applied quickly to
stimulate multiple zones. This may be favorable compared with propellant fracturing. Pulse power fracturing may
be used for stimulating very tight reservoirs, for improving breakdown or for initiating fractures at specific
locations.
Keywords: Fracturing, Pulse Power, Electric Sparker, Cement, Diatomite.

Introduction
Hydraulic fracturing is often used for reservoir stimulation, especially for tight reservoirs [Economides, et al.,
2000]. By creating and extending the fracture from a borehole into rock formations, oil or gas can be produced
from the formation towards the borehole with much less resistance. Normally the fluid is driving the fracture and
carrying the proppant into the fracture to keep it conductive after relieving fluid pressure. As such this kind of
fracturing is named as hydraulic fracturing. Different to the quasi-static hydraulic fracturing, the pulse power
fracturing is a dynamic progress of fracture initiation and propagation by a high-pressure pulse that happens on a
time scale such as one millisecond. Various techniques have been used to generate shock waves including
explosion waves by Schmidt et al., (1980). The idea of pulse fracturing using electric discharges has been tested
for the purpose of rock breaking and drilling by several workers [Gray, et al., 1987, Touryan et al, 1989, Hamelin,
et al., 1993, Pronko, et al., 1993, Hammon et al., 2002, Weise et al., 1993]. Unfortunately, the literature shows
only qualitative data on rock fracturing and quantitative information on this topic is scarce.
In power pulse fracturing, the plasma bubble generated by an electric spark propagates a dynamic fracture.
Compared with conventional quasi-static fracturing, pulse fracturing is expected to have the advantage of efficient
application and the potential to induce multiple fractures. Because the electric sparker, or the energy source, can

1
Experiments conducted at Delft University of Technology.
2 SPE 153805
be easily positioned at any location, the fracture will propagate with little energy loss which is quite significant in
quasi-static fracturing due to large frictional losses. Furthermore, there will be little interaction between fracture
branches emanating from a wellbore under fast pulse loading because elastic interaction happens only after a time
delay given by the travel time of elastic waves between the fractures. So the fast pressurization is expected to
generate multiple fractures. Conventional quasi-static hydraulic fracturing normally induces bi-wing fractures
only, but multiple fractures are beneficial to reservoir stimulation in very tight reservoirs when the drawdown is
limited to a narrow zone around the fractures. Multiple fractures are also needed when the reservoir has natural
fractures aligned with the preferred fracture plane. In that case the off-plane hydraulic fractures will intersect
natural fractures so that the well is better connected to the natural fracture system. The objective of the present
experiments is to investigate the feasibility of pulse power for hydraulic fracturing application.
The main objective is to test the penetration of the fractures under laboratory conditions. Since multiple fracturing
is also determined by formation heterogeneity it was decided to leave the issue of multiple fracture generation to
field tests and rather concentrate the lab testing on the attenuation mechanism of pressure waves in rock fractures
that are induced by the sparks.
Experimental Set-up
In the experimental investigation, ten cubic blocks made from cement have been tested and two cylindrical
samples, see Table 2. C01 is a static hydraulic fracturing test as a reference test, in which a viscous gel with
dynamic viscosity 100 Pas has been employed as working fluid. The others are pulse fracturing tests, where the
electric pulse has been used to pressurize the water within the borehole. The borehole water was made conductive
with 1% salt, so it was easier to initiate the electrical discharge.
Preparation of Test Blocks
Test blocks C01-12 are made of cement with a size of 300 mm; tests Cyl1-2 were performed in a biaxial cell on
cylindrical samples with a height of 0.55 m and a diameter of 0.4 m. The mechanical properties of the cement test
block are listed in Table 1. The diatomite had much lower Youngs modulus and strength but higher permeability
and porosity. The samples were obtained from a quarry near the McKittrick field, California, USA. The type of
diatomite is Opal A/Ct. Because of their low strength; the maximum stress was 4 MPa, which was a little lower
than the cement block tests.
A vertical borehole with a diameter of 24 mm was drilled in the center. At each end of the borehole, a hollow steel
pipe was sealed to the block by epoxy. The length of the two steel pipes was 100 mm, which was designed to
keep the length of the open section of the borehole at 100 mm as well. At the middle section of the open borehole
section, two pair of notches were sawn in X- and Y- direction to allow initiation of multiple fractures. The length
of the 4 notches in the Z-direction was 50 mm.

Tri-axial Test frame
The tri-axial test frame is a compression system that exerts independent stresses on the test block in three
directions up to 40 MPa [Lhomme, 2005]. In the experiments the three principal stresses were 3 MPa in x and 5

Figure 1: Block cross-section with borehole and transducers in the triaxial load frame.
Sparker
Pump
Acoustic
transducer
Pressure
gauge
SPE 153805 3
MPa in y,z-direction. In each direction, there is one pair of external LVDTs measuring the global deformations of
the test block. The static pressure was normally measured by Piezo-electrical pressure gauges. The dynamic
pressure during the pulse, however, was measured by an optic-fiber pressure gauge owing to its high-frequency
response and much less interference with the high-voltage discharge. For the pulse-power fracture tests, the
acoustic monitoring system can only be applied in X- and Y-direction of the test blocks due to the insulation
requirements at the top and bottom plates. Figure 1 shows the experimental setup of the pulse power fracturing
test.
A battery powered Tektronix oscilloscope was employed to acquire both the current and voltage of the sparker
discharge. In addition, a Yokogawa oscilloscope was used to record the dynamic pressure within the borehole
whose signal was obtained from the optic-fiber pressure gauge. These two oscilloscopes were triggered
simultaneously by the current signal of the discharge.

Sparker System
The schematic diagram of the sparker circuit is shown in Figure 2. The main capacitor of 200F was charged to
high voltage by a power supply. The final charging voltage on the main capacitor was limited to 5 kV for our
setup. Then, the voltage was gradually built up on the trigger capacitor of 100nF. Due to the high voltage, switch
SW1 will close, which induces closing the secondary switch SW2. Thereby the high voltage from the main
capacitor will be directly connected to the sparker. As a result, an electric spark will be generated between the two
electrodes of the sparker. The water in the borehole evaporates and forms a plasma bubble within such a short
time that the pressure of the water increases rapidly. The characteristic time period of the LC circuit is 0.5 ms,

Figure 2: Schematic electric circuit of the sparker.

Figure 3: Measured and fitted current for the short-circuit discharge. The fit was obtained by adjusting the
inductance and resistivity of the R-L-C loop.
30 H
L1
100 nF
200 F
HV1
SW1
SW2
HV2 -
-
+
+
V-out
V-cap
I-spark
Trigger
Capacitor
Main
Capacitor
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800
-4000
-3000
-2000
-1000
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
t (s)
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

(
A
)
Fit with: C=200(F), L=28.6(H), R=0.079()


Measured
Fit
4 SPE 153805
which results in a rise time of the pressure pulse of some 0.2 ms.
Before the test, we calibrated the loop by short-circuiting the sparker. The result of the calibration is shown in
Figure 3. The main capacitor was charged to 1 kV. The time for one cycle was about 0.45 ms. The discharge
terminated after 3 full cycles, leaving the main capacitor at a residual voltage. The measurements of high voltage
(~5kV) and large current (~8kA) were made with Tektronix high-voltage probe P6015 and large-current probe
CT4. The distance between the sparker and the optic-fiber pressure gauge was set to be 20 mm during the tests.
The sampling frequency of the Yokogawa oscilloscope was set to be 1.25 MHz, which was used to acquire the
dynamic pressure pulse. The data were filtered by a low-pass filter whose filter frequency was set to be 8 KHz.
The sampling frequency of the Tektronix oscilloscope was set to be 1 MHz, which was used to acquire the
voltage on the main capacitor and the current of the spark.
The spark produces a plasma bubble of a few cc, which results in a significant pressure rise [Cook, 1997]. The
energy on the capacitor rises quadratic with charging voltage. The mechanical energy is approximately
proportional to the square of the pressure rise, so that a linear relation between pressure and voltage is obtained
for constant energy conversion rate, see Figure 4.

Results
Test C01: reference test with pumping
Test C01 is a classic quasi-static hydraulic fracture test. Initially water was employed to pressurize the borehole,
trying to get a comparable test result with the pulse tests using water. Because the viscosity of the water is quite
low there was too much leakage when the borehole was being pressurized. Therefore, viscous silicon oil with
viscosity 100 Pas was used to fracture the cement block. As shown in Figure 5, the borehole pressure at the
breakdown point was about 22.7 MPa, with a constant injection rate of 1cc/min.
The fracture initiation at 15 MPa can be clearly seen in Figure 5, when the shear wave at a distance of 4.7 cm
from the borehole was shadowed by the fracture. The post-mortem showed a large fracture propagated through
the cement block. The fracture was curving and it reached both edges.
Test C02: example of pulse power test
In the pulse tests, the following procedure was used:
Before pulsing, a leak-off test was done by pumping the borehole pressure to the minimum stress and
observing the pressure decline. During the leak-off test, acoustic monitoring was used to measure shear
wave shadowing by any open fractures.
This procedure was repeated in between pulses.
During pulsing the borehole was pressurized to the minimum stress; in some tests a higher pressure was
applied, but trying to stay below propagation pressure. The pump response after a pulse indicated any
increase in leak-off due to fracture propagation. When the fracture propagates to the edge of the block this
is evident from a large leak rate.

Figure 4: Spark energy and peak pressure as a function of capacitor voltage.
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
V (V)


0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
E
(J)
P
(MPa)


E P
SPE 153805 5


Figure 6: Pulse times, pump pressure and rate for test C02.

Figure 7: Test C02 Fractures were dominant in preferred Y-Z plane, growing to the block edge. The
fractures were made visible by spraying water on the surface that evaporated, leaving some water in the
fractures.

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
t [s]


0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
p
[MPa]
q
[cc/min]


1 2 3 4 5
p
inj
q
X
Y

Figure 5: Test C01 pressure and normalized shear wave transmission energy vs. time. The fracture
initiated at about 15 MPa, while breakdown was at 22.7 MPa.
0 500 1000 1500
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
t [s]


0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
p
[MPa]
E
(-)


p
inj
E
SS-X=0.047
Injection
Shut-in
6 SPE 153805
This cement block had 8 notches every 45
o
around the borehole. The pump response during the pulses was
significant from the very beginning. After the second pulse was performed, the pump injection shown in Figure 6
turned actually negative to -0.6 cc/min to keep the borehole pressure constant at 3 MPa. After the third pulse, its
injection rate was -0.2 cc/min. Shot 9 and 10 were both operated at charging voltage 5 kV, and the borehole was
pressurized up to 28 MPa in the former pulse but 36 MPa in the final shot, see Figure 8. The final shot propagated
the fracture until the edge of the block, which can be seen from the high injection rate after this shot in Figure 6.
The dominant fractures are shown in Figure 7. They were located within the preferred Y-Z plane and quite
straight; they had reached the block edge as was seen during the post-mortem process. Besides the two dominant
fractures, there was only one minor fracture with a length of 13 mm which was oriented in the diagonal direction.
No fractures initiated at the other 5 notches. The results of this test block with 8 notches are quite similar to two
tests with four notches. So it seems that the number of notches has little impact on the fracture geometry.
Test with large notch C09
In order to determine the magnitude of the pressure pulse that propagates along the fracture we performed also a
few tests with a large slit extending from the borehole that simulates a fracture. The slit was made by casting a
Teflon sheet with a thickness of 0.5 mm in the cement. The Teflon was removed before the test. An additional
pressure gauge was put in a small hole drilled to the tip of the slit. Figure 9 shows the fracture after slicing the
block in the fracture plane. The first fracture increment could be discerned by a slight color difference; this was
verified in a separate test (C10) in which only a single pulse initiated the fracture. Also the final fracture shape is
shown. The fracture had propagated to the top of the block.
Figure 10 shows the borehole pressure and tip pressure during a pulse. The pulse reaches the tip with some delay
and the peak pressure at the tip was even higher than the borehole pressure. The borehole pressure shows many
reflections of the borehole waves. Also, a number of reflections occur inside the slit.
This test was repeated with 4 and 8 notches. The procedure was to increase gradually the voltage of the pulses,
until the block was split. This was apparent when the leak-off from the borehole increased strongly. The fracture
initiation pressure was apparent from the first increase in leak-off. The pressure to split the block was some 2
MPa higher in most cases. However, in a few tests the fracture never reached the block edge, as evidenced by the
leak-off and post-mortem slicing.


Figure 8: Current, voltage and pressure of last two pulses in test C02.
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
x 10
4
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
-4000
-2000
0
2000
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
0
10
20
30
40
p
(MPa)
Time (s)


p
P5
p
P6
SPE 153805 7



Figure 9: Test C09 fracture surface and fracture contours after splitting the block. The fracture after
initiation is indicated by (+) and the final fracture by (x).



Figure 10: Borehole pressure (upper diagram) and pressure at the tip of the slit in test C09.


1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
P
(MPa)
Time (s)


P
bh,P06
1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
-20
0
20
40
60
P
(MPa)
Time (s)


P
tip,P06
1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
-4000
-2000
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
I
(A)
Time (s)


I
P06
8 SPE 153805

Figure 11: Test C05 showed multiple fractures that did not grow out of block (fracture length in mm).


Test with small, multiple fractures
As an example test C05 is shown. This cement block had 8 notches evenly distributed over the circumference of
the borehole. The first 8 pulses were all set at relatively low voltage 2 kV, whose responses from the injection
pump were small. Then with the increase of the discharge voltages, 4 more pulses induced more obvious
responses from the injection pump, although no fracture reached the block edge. Thereafter the borehole pressure
was increased from 3 MPa to 4 MPa, and 8 shots were made. Subsequently, 4 shots were performed at 5 MPa
borehole pressure. The responses from the pump after shot 22 was the maximum, reaching 0.88 cc/min; whereas
the other responses were all less than 0.4 cc/min after the shot. The energy input from the sparks increased
gradually for these 12 shots at the same voltage of 5 kV. With the gap between the two sparker electrodes
increasing gradually from 1.5 mm to 5.5 mm due to erosion, the energy input increased from 1040 J to 1335 J by
about 28%.
To check whether the fractures had stopped propagating, shots 26 to 30 were further performed. Because the
borehole pressure returned back to 3 MPa, the response of the pump after each shot was actually less significant
than before. Most responses were negative immediately after the shot, although it changed to be positive injection
soon later. The peak dynamic pressure at 5 kV discharge was found to be 38 MPa.
The post-mortem result is shown in Figure 11. This test is one of the most successful tests that generated multiple
fractures. Out of the 8 notches, 5 had been fractured. Its interesting to see that 4 fractures were in the diagonal
directions. Only one wing of the notches in X-direction has been fractured and another notch also did not initiate
any fracture. This may be ascribed to the differences in notch depth, whose depth varied from the nominal 5 mm.
The lengths of the 5 fractures varied, with the longest at 71.9 mm and the shortest at 34.1 mm; but none of them
reached the block edge. It can be concluded that the fractures had reached the maximum size. It seemed
impossible to propagate the fractures further with the maximum pulse level. Since fractures initiated from 5
notches, the leakage rate must be high. The pump injection rate was at the level of 0.3 to 0.4 cc/min to keep the
borehole pressure constant at 5 MPa. Although the peak dynamic pressure during the 5 kV shot was as high as 38
MPa, the distribution of the pulse energy over the 5 existing fractures impaired further propagation of the
fractures.
Test with small, bi-wing fractures
In some tests there was also limited fracture propagation with a bi-wing fracture. As an example we show test
C07. This block had notches in the borehole at 45
o
with respect to the preferred plane. Figure 12 shows the post-
mortem pictures and fracture contours for test C07. The fracture did not extend very far from the borehole in this
case. The fracture barely propagated to the block boundary at the top: we saw a water leak over a few cm when
we pressurized the borehole after the test. Many pulses have been applied. In this case we observed a clear
response in the flow rate and the pressure after the pulses. Also, it was clear that the pressure decline was much
steeper after applying the pulses. The fracture did not turn towards the preferred plane. It is possible that some of
68.1
63.2
57.0
34.1
71.9
SPE 153805 9
the pulse energy leaked away because of a leak, but the static borehole pressure could be maintained without
causing a large leak.
It turned out that discharges inside the load frame caused a lot of problems with the acoustic monitoring system.
Therefore we decided to do only acoustic monitoring between the pulses. The best approach appeared to be to do
discharges with constant pressure inside the borehole (equal to the minimum horizontal stress), while the acoustic
monitoring was done in pressure cycles in between the pulses, while we pumped the borehole up and then
observed the pressure fall-off.
In this way there are two sources of information on the fracture size:
The absolute transmitted energy can be compared before and after the pulses. We expect a decrease in
energy when the fracture has propagated through the line of sight of a transducer pair.
We opened the fracture and could observe the response of the transmissions to the pressure.

Figure 13 shows such injection cycles, before and after fracture initiation. The injection did not cause any fracture
propagation, but the opening of the fracture is clearly visible in the decrease of the acoustic transmission energy.
Figure 14 shows the progressive extension of the fracture. The plot shows that the fracture did not propagate very
far from the borehole. The response at -0.05 m in the base cycle is unexpected, but it appears clear that there was
little effect of the pressure pulses at this location in the later cycles. In agreement with the post-mortem pictures,

Figure 12: Test C07 fracture surface and fracture contours after splitting the block.
//
Figure 13: Energy of acoustic transmissions vs. time for test C07 (cycle a and c). Before pulsing, there
was no response to the pressure in the acoustic transmissions, while a strong response is seen in cycle
c, indicating opening of the induced fracture system.
4500 5000 5500 6000
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
t [s]


0.98
0.985
0.99
0.995
1
1.005
1.01
1.015
1.02
p
[MPa]
E
(V
2
)


p
inj
E-104-PP-Y=0.0255-=0
E-153-PP-X=0.0255-=0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
t [s]


0.965
0.97
0.975
0.98
0.985
0.99
0.995
1
1.005
1.01
p
[MPa]
E
(V
2
)


p
inj
E-104-PP-Y=0.0255-=0
E-153-PP-X=0.0255-=0
10 SPE 153805
we see that the fracture did not propagate farther than 0.05 m from the wellbore. We see an increase of the effect
near the wellbore, which can be explained by propagation along the wellbore, thereby diminishing the fracture
stiffness.
The acoustic monitoring confirmed that the fracture really stopped propagating after a number of pulses. This
shows that in principle there is a threshold pressure for further propagation and that the attenuation of the pressure
wave may hamper further propagation, if the tip pressure falls below the threshold.

Tests on Diatomite
Initially, the injection pump was the same pump as used in the cement tests. However, this pump could only
pressurize the borehole up to about 0.4 MPa at an injection rate of 10 cc/min. This was mainly because the
permeability of the diatomite block was very high; and also there were some natural fractures in the block. The
first test was performed with a low pressure in the borehole of 0.4 MPa. A sequence of eight pulses was applied
with rising voltage until 5 kV. The maximum pressure was 11 MPa. Slicing the block revealed two fractures with
significantly different sizes, with one at 75.5 mm on the cut plane and another 14.7 mm.
In view of the small capacity of the pump, we replaced it by a vessel that contained water pressurized by nitrogen.
In the following tests, the borehole fluid was pressurized with this vessel at a pressure of around 4 MPa. The flow
rate from the vessel was measured to be about 100 cc/min; and the pressure of the borehole was found to be
maintained at about 2.5 MPa.
Two more tests were performed with more pulses. Although more fractures were induced, the maximum size was
rather small at about 70 mm and the fractures from the off-plane notches were much smaller, see Table 3.
In the last two tests, the borehole had been covered with epoxy to reduce leak-off; the notches were sawn through
the epoxy, so that leak-off still occurred through the notches.
In test D04 few pulses were applied to check the fractures after fewer shots; this was necessary, since the large
acoustic attenuation of Diatomite hampered acoustic monitoring. The peak dynamic pressure was 12 MPa. The
post-mortem slicing of the block revealed that the block was fractured from all its four notches. Within the Y-Z
plane, the sizes of the fractures were 48.9 and 11.2 mm; whereas within the X-Z plane, the sizes were 28.7 and
10.5 mm. So this is also a good example to generate multiple fractures. It should be pointed out that two fractures,
with sizes of 11.2 and 10.5 mm, were found to be arrested by natural fractures.

Figure 14: Comparison of changes in absolute acoustic transmission coefficient vs. distance from the
borehole, for test C07 (cycles a, c, e). With more discharges, the attenuation increased, but the extent was
constant. Probably, this indicates extension of the fracture along the borehole, rather than away from the
borehole. The first cycle showed a response at 0.05 m from the borehole, which was probably due to
saturating shrinkage cracks.
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12

P
(-)
-0.10 -0.05 0 0.05 0.10
x (m)

P
- C07a

P
- C07c

P
- C07e
SPE 153805 11


Figure 15: Voltage, current and pressure for the last 3 pulses in test D05.



Figure 16: Dominant fractures in the diagonal direction in test D05.


0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
p
(MPa)
Time (s)


p
P24
p
P25
p
P26
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
x 10
4
I
(A)
Time (s)


I
P24
I
P25
I
P26
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
-6000
-4000
-2000
0
2000
V
(V)
Time (s)


V
out-P24
V
out-P25
V
out-P26
Dominant fractures
in diagonal direction.

X
=3 MPa

Y
=4 MPa
5
6
.
8

m
m
5
7
.
6

m
m
12 SPE 153805

Figure 17: Hydraulic fracture contacted and was terminated by a natural fracture in test D05.


It was found that the block was fractured in one of its diagonal directions only, see Figure 16. The sizes of the two
fractures were 57.6 and 56.8 mm which were quite comparable. There were no multiple fractures for this test.
Sometimes, the hydraulic fracture terminated on a natural fracture, see Figure 17.
In test D05 the borehole had 8 notches, 4 of which were in either X- or Y- direction, and another 4 notches were
in the diagonal directions. The initial gap between the two electrodes of the sparker was 2.3 mm. There were 26
shots performed of which 17 were at charging voltages of 5 kV. The borehole pressure was maintained at 3 MPa
during each shot. The peak dynamic pressure peaked at about 11 MPa, see Figure 15.
Discussion and conclusions
The tests show that high pressures can be achieved with sparks. In an open fracture the pressure waves can
propagate efficiently, so that high pressure reaches the tip and further propagates the fracture. However, the
efficiency of fracture propagation varied strongly. This depends on rock type, number of multiple fractures and
probably leak-off and surface roughness. Rock strength certainly plays a role for rather small fractures: the
fractures initiated at much lower pressure in Diatomite compared to cement. The lower pressure in Diatomite can
be explained by borehole ballooning, which is significant in soft rock. Even at a relatively low pressure of 10-12
MPa, the blocks were fractured, but the fracture propagated only halfway through the blocks. Had the sparks
generated higher pressures, the fractures might have been longer. Figure 18 shows the maximum borehole
pressure as a function of fracture length (normalized on the block size).
It is of interest to determine the cause of pressure wave attenuation. Numerical modeling shows that leak-off is
almost always negligible, since there is little time for leak-off of fluid from the fracture. Frictional effects can
explain attenuation, because the high flow rate causes strong turbulence.
The fractures initiated almost always from the notch and propagated vertically along the notch. The fractures
generated via the pulse power method were quite straight, whereas the fracture generated by slow pumping was
more curving. Multiple fractures have been induced with pulse-power fracturing, provided the borehole had
multiple notches. Among the pulse fracturing tests, four of them have generated multiple fractures. Normally only
one set of fractures will be dominant, which will be oriented in the preferred direction whose confining stress is
the lowest among the three initial stresses.
Piece 2
Hydraulic fracture terminated by natural fracture.
5
7
.
6

m
m
SPE 153805 13
Out of 12 pulse fracturing tests, four of them have been split by their dominant fractures that reached the block
edges. However, the off-plane fractures were usually much smaller. It was also found that the number of initial
notches had little influence on the pulse fracturing tests.
Figure 19 is a plot of the two main parameters that we investigated: ratio of multiple fracture size versus fracture
size normalized on block size. Preferably, the test results would cluster at the upper right corner, with all multiples
having the same size and the fracture propagating through the block. However, many tests resulted in bi-wing
fractures, which plot near the lower right corner. In most of these cases, the borehole had no notches or only two
notches (series S1), but that is also significant. It shows that even at this fast pressurization there was a strong
tendency to form bi-wing fractures. A possible explanation is that the pressure rise time should have been shorter
to generate multiple fractures.
In tests with multiple notches, some tests resulted in multiple fractures, which were rather small; these points plot
near the centre of Figure 19. It is of course possible that higher energy sparks would have resulted in larger
fractures. It is the subject of another paper to present the modeling of the experiments and the scaling of the
laboratory results to field scale (Pater, 2012).
What are the implications for practical application of pulse power? The lab tests and modeling shows that fracture
penetration is probably modest: some 15-30 ft. This is also corroborated by test results with propellant fracturing
which also yields rather small fractures (Schmidt et al., 1980). Therefore, the most promising applications may be
in reservoirs where a limited fracture penetration is sufficient. For instance, when the hydraulic fracture should
connect the well to natural fractures. Other applications may be to initiate multiple fracture systems that are
needed in gas and oil shales.
Finally, the laboratory work and modeling provide a solid basis for design of field tests, but experience has shown
that the ground truth is necessarily field testing of a novel technology like pulse power. In the coming years, field
tests will be conducted to determine the potential for inducing multiple fracture systems with pulse power at field
scale. The field work will show whether pulse power can become an additional tool for improved resource
recovery. Although the focus is now on marginal reservoirs, it might be that the technology is also beneficial in
permeable reservoirs.

Figure 18: Maximum pressure versus normalized fracture size. Test series S1 had no notches or two
notches, while series S2 had 4-8 notches. The relatively small fractures in Diatomite were propagated with
small pulse amplitude. In cement some tests yielded also a small fracture for much larger pulse
amplitude.

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
P
m
a
x

(
M
P
a
)
X
f
/X
b
(-)


Cement-Biaxial
Cement-Triaxial-Pump
Cement-Triaxial-S1
Cement-Triaxial-S2
Diatomite-Triaxial
14 SPE 153805

Figure 19: Ratio of transverse to dominant fracture length versus ratio of fracture length to block size.
Test series S1 had no notches or two notches, while series S2 had 4-8 notches.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research project is sponsored by the Chevron Energy Technology Company, USA.
REFERENCES
Cook, Jeffrey A., Austin M. Gleeson, and Randy M. Roberts, (1997), A spark-generated bubble model with semi-empirical
mass transport, 1908 J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 101 (4), April 1997.
Economides, M.J. & K.G. Nolte (2000) Reservoir Stimulation, Third Edition, Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Baffins
Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1UD, England.
Gray, E.W., W.M. Moeny, B.R. Beckes and B.B. Davis (1987) Pulsed power fracturing of rock, Proceedings of 6th IEEE
Pulsed Power Conference, pp. 330335.
Hamelin, M., F. Kitzinger, (1993), Hard Rock Fragmentation With Pulsed Power, IEEE Xplore. Proc 9th IEEE Int. Pulsed
Power Conference.
Hammon, J., (2002), Electric pulse rock sample disaggregator, IEEE Explore.
Lhomme, T., Initiation of hydraulic fracture in natural sand stone. Delft University of Technology PhD thesis, 2005.
Pater, C.J. de (2012), Model of dynamic fracture propagation by pulse power, to be published.
Pronko, S., G. Schofield, (1993), Megajoule Pulsed Power Experiments For Plasma Blasting Mining Aipplications, Proc
9th IEEE Int. Pulsed Power Conference.
Schmidt, R.A., N.R. Warpinski, et al. (1980), In-situ evaluation of several tailored-pulse well-shooting concepts, SPE
Unconventional Gas Recovery Symposium. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1980.
Touryan, K.J., W.M. Moeny, C.T. Aimone, J.W. Benze (1989) Electrohydraulic Rock Fracturing by Pulsed Power Generated
Focused Shocks, 7th IEEE International Pulsed Power Conference, Monterey, California, pp. 69.
Touya, G., T Reess, L Pecastaing, A Gibert and P Domens, (2006) ,Development of subsonic electrical discharges in water
and measurements of the associated pressure waves, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 39 (2006) 52365244
Weise, Th. H.G.G., M.J Loiffler, Experimental Investigations On Rock Fractioning By Replacing Explosives With
Electrically Generated Pressure Pulses, IEEE Explore, Proc 9th IEEE Int. Pulsed Power Conference, (1993).

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
X
f
,
d
o
m
/
X
f
,
t
r
a
n
s
(
-
)
X
f
/X
b
(-)
Cement-Biaxial
Cement-Triaxial-Pump
Cement-Triaxial-S1
Cement-Triaxial-S2
Diatomite-Triaxial
Maximum
3 kV Pulse
No Notches
Split Block,
but small Multiples
Incomplete
Propagation,
but equal fractures
SPE 153805 15
Table 1: Sample properties
E K
(GPa) (mD) (BV)
Cement 15 0.001 0.15
Diatomite 1 1 0.55

Table 2: Test Conditions
Test P-bh
(MPa)
D-notch
(mm)
Notches Pulses
(5kV)
C01 3 5 4 N/A
C02 3 5 8 10 (2)
C03 3 5 4 3 (0)
C04 3 5 4 6 (0)
C05 3 5 8 30 (16)
C06 3 5 4 5 (2)
C07 3 5 2 8 (3)
C08 3 0 0 12 (0)
C09 1 30 2 7 (0)
C10 1 30 2 5 (0)
C11 2 30 2 18 (2)
C12 3 30 2 4 (2)
Cyl1 3 5 4 19 (4)
Cyl2 3 5 4 32 (23)
D01 0.1 5 4 8 (2)
D02 2.5 5 4 18 (13)
D03 3 5 4 16 (10)
D04 3 5 4 6 (2)
D05 3 5 8 26 (17)

16 SPE 153805

Table 3: Test Results listing maximum pressure, fracture length from the notch tip, minimum fracture
length for multiple fractures and occurrence of multiples.
Test P-max
(MPa)
X-f
(mm)
X-f,min
(mm)
Multiples
(-)
Post-Mortem
C01 23 135 0 No Single fracture was not straight but curving in preferred Y-Z plane.
C02 36 135 14 Yes Dominant fractures were in preferred Y-Z plane.
C03 18 135 0 No Single fracture was quite straight in preferred Y-Z plane.
C04 21 135 14 Yes Multiple Fractures, but dominant in preferred Y-Z plane.
C05 38 71.9 34 Yes Multiple fractures, mainly in 4 diagonal directions, did not grow out of block.
C06 26 135 14 Yes Multiple Fractures, but dominant in preferred Y-Z plane.
C07 37 70 0 No Fracture with limited penetration from the notch over its entire height. It
grew out of the top.
C08 69 110 0 No Initiated near the borehole top, the fracture grew out at the top.
C09 39 110 0 No Initial fracture grew a few cm from the slit, then grew out of the top.
C10 N/A 10 0 No Fracture propagated 1 to 2 cm along the slit.
C11 38 110 0 No Initial fracture grew a few cm along the slit, then grew out of the top.
C12 46 110 0 No Initial fracture grew a few cm from the slit, then grew out of the top.
Cyl1 40 185 49 Yes Multiple penny-shaped fractures reached the block edge.
Cyl2 44 79.9 56 Yes Multiple fractures were quite symmetrical but didn't grow out of block.
D01 11 75.5 15 No Single fractures within preferred Y-Z plane.
D02 10.5 67.7 7 Yes Multiple fractures.
D03 10.5 56.9 16 Yes Multiple fractures, mostly in preferred Y-Z plane.
D04 12 48.9 10 Yes Multiple fractures, some arrested by natural fracture.
D05 11 57.6 0 No Single fracture in one diagonal direction.