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Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials

using permeability-based hydraulic fracture model
Ming Li a, Peijun Guo b,⇑, Dieter F.E. Stolle b, Li Liang a, Yitao Shi a
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, Box 265 N, 3-11, Wenhua Road, Heping District, Shenyang 110819, PR China
b
Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada

Received 26 February 2018; accepted 24 December 2018

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing is one of the most important techniques for enhancing oil/gas production. The permeability-based hydraulic
fracture (PHF) model, which is based on the smeared-crack method and considers the interaction between the pore pressure and solid
phase, is adopted in the present study for a fully-coupled simulation of the hydraulic fracture in a heterogeneous rock formation. The
level set method (LSM), which is used to describe the distribution of material properties of heterogeneous rocks, is coupled with the PHF
model. Using the coupled PHF–LSM model, a series of finite-element method (FEM) simulations are carried out to investigate the char-
acteristics of a hydraulic fracture (e.g., the breakdown pressure and fracture propagation) in heterogeneous rocks. Three types of hetero-
geneous rocks are examined: layered rock, rock with distributed inclusions, and rock with random spatial variations in the material
properties. The results of the numerical simulations show that the coupled PHF–LSM model can describe the material interface without
changing the FEM mesh used to discretize the physical domain. Further, the model effectively simulates hydraulic-fracturing problems
for various heterogeneous rocks.
Ó 2019 Tongji University and Tongji University Press. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Owner. This is an open access article
under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Keywords: Hydraulic fracture; Heterogeneous rock material; Smeared-crack method; Level set method

1 Introduction wellbore. Assuming plane-strain conditions, Perkins and

The prediction of the geometry of a hydraulic-fracture
zone and the variation in the injection pressure during an
entire fracture process is important to evaluate the effec-
tiveness of a hydraulic fracture. Following the pioneer
work of Khristianovitch and Zheltov (1955) to model a
fracture induced by a viscous fluid in the horizontal plane
under plane-strain conditions, Geertsma and de Klerk
(1969) developed a rapid method—the Khristianovic–
Geertsma–de Klerk (KGD) model—to predict the width
and extent of hydraulically induced fractures around a
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: liming-neu@163.com (M. Li), guop@mcmaster.ca
(P. Guo), stolle@mcmaster.ca (D.F.E. Stolle), liangli@mail.neu.edu.cn
(L. Liang).
Kern (1961) proposed the Perkins–Kern–Nordgren
(PKN) fracture model that permits the estimation of frac-
ture widths under a variety of flow conditions for both hor-
izontal and vertical fractures. Nordgren (1972) further
modified the PKN model to simulate the propagation of
hydraulically induced fractures of limited vertical extent
and elliptic cross-sections considering the effect of fluid
loss. Similar work was conducted by Economides and
Nolte (1989) and Valko and Economides (1995). A repre-
sentative model for a three-dimensional (3D) analysis is
the P-3D-C model (Adachi, Sie brits, Peirce, &
Desroches, 2007; Rahman & Rahman, 2010), which is a
pseudo-3D (P-3D) model incorporating Carter’s solution
of material balance (Simonson, Abou-Sayed, & Clifton,
1978; Settari & Cleary, 1986; Warpinski & Smith, 1989).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
2467-9674/Ó 2019 Tongji University and Tongji University Press. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Owner.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Please cite this article as: M. Li, P. Guo, D. F. E. Stolle et al., Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based
hydraulic fracture model, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
2 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx
Developed within the framework of the classical elasticity
theory, these analytical models all assume a linear elastic
behavior of the reservoir rock and neglect surface energy
considerations for the crack tip or plastic deformation
effects. The leak-off is treated as an independent process
and merged with the crack propagation problem via itera-
tive methods that assume self-consistency.
Numerical methods are more effective in simulating
hydraulic fracturing problems; particularly, when the non-
linear material behavior, hydro-mechanical coupling,
heterogeneity of the rock formation, and complex bound-
ary conditions are considered. Various numerical modeling
techniques have been developed to simulate hydraulic frac-
tures: the finite-element method (FEM) (Wangens, 2011),
distinct-element method (Fatahi, Hossain, Fallahzadeh, &
Mostofi, 2016; Zhang, Damjanac, & Huang, 2013), and
meshfree (meshless) method (Zhuang, Augarde, &
Mathisen, 2012). Based on the FEM, the smeared-crack
approach (Li, Guo, Stolle, & Liang, 2016), extended
FEM (XFEM) (Lecampion, 2009; Mohammadnejad &
Khoei, 2013), and cohesive-zone approach (Sarris &
Papanastasiou, 2011) have been successfully used to simu-
late hydraulic-fracture problems. Different from the FEM
in which a real crack must be physically defined, the stan-
dard XFEM allows the presence of discontinuities in an
element by enriching degrees of freedom (DOF) with spe-
cial displacement functions. The major drawback of
XFEM is that the solution corresponding to additional
DOF requires additional system resources (either more
computer power or higher computing costs); in particular,
for 3D, large-scale field problems. Even though the cohe-
sive zone model was originally proposed to investigate
the behavior of perfectly brittle or ductile materials exhibit-
ing a nonlinear zone ahead of the crack tip due to plasticity
or micro-cracking (Dugdale, 1960; Barenblatt, 1962), it has
been used to model the process of hydraulic fractures in
rocks. Different from the discrete-crack model aiming at
simulating the initiation and propagation of dominant
cracks, the smeared-crack approach assumes that the
cracked element remains continuous by smearing out the
cracks over the continuum. Thus, the cracking effect is
translated to a deterioration of the material properties
(e.g., the stiffness, permeability, and strength). Originally
used to analyze the crack propagation in concrete struc-
tures (Bažant and Oh, 1983; de Borst, 1987), methods
based on the smeared-crack approach have been developed
to simulate hydraulic fracturing in rock mass (Hu, Chen,
Cheng, & Yang, 2013). However, the classical smeared-
crack model exhibits some disadvantages; particularly,
the propagation of a crack along the direction of the mesh
lines and a spurious sensitivity with incorrect convergence
when the elements are refined to a vanishing size (Bažant
and Oh, 1983; Remmers, de Borst, & Needleman, 2003).
Various methods, such as an introduction of a characteris-
tic length and the non-local smeared-crack method, have
been adopted to reduce the mesh sensitivity (Bažant and
Oh, 1983; Bažant and Lin, 1988; Hu et al., 2013). However,
Please cite this article as: M. Li, P. Guo, D. F. E. Stolle et al., Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based
hydraulic fracture model, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
they need more computational resources owing to the need
for finer meshes.
Regarding heterogeneous rocks with inclusions, depend-
ing on the contrast between the properties of the con-
stituents, a heterogeneous rock can be treated as a
homogeneous continuum (matrix) with different types of
inclusions, which can be hard inclusions, weak inclusions,
or voids. The geometry of an inclusion, which usually has
a finite volume and complex shape, can be simplified to a
circle (Wu & Wong, 2013), sphere, or an ellipse (Markov,
Jarillo, & Markov, 2014). Wu and Wong (2013) reported
the test results of hydrocal specimens containing a single
inclusion and showed that cracks can propagate along
the hard inclusion and pass through the soft inclusion.
Li, Guo, Stolle, and Li (2017) carried out FEM simulations
to investigate the influence of regularly or randomly dis-
tributed hard/soft inclusions with different shapes. In addi-
tion, numerical algorithms have been developed in XFEM
to consider the effect of inclusions, such as the enriched
numerical manifold method (Wu & Wong, 2013) and level
set method (LSM) (Osher & Sethian, 1988).
In this study, a permeability-based hydraulic fracture
(PHF) model developed by Li et al. (2016) for two-
dimensional (2D) rock material with layered features is
used with FEM to simulate hydraulic fracturing in different
types of heterogeneous rock materials. These include lay-
ered rock systems, rock material with inclusions, and
heterogeneous rock with random spatial distributions of
material properties following the Weibull distribution
(Weibull, 1939). To improve the modeling efficiency and
to control the mesh sensitivity of the FEM simulations,
the same mesh is used for different types of rocks with a
proper control of the aspect ratio of the FEM elements
(Li, Li, Guo, & Li, 2015). The LSM is introduced to track
the evolution of the material interface without changing the
FEM mesh (Li et al., 2017). Different from the study in Li
et al. (2017), the LSM is used to track inclusions, layered
and spatial distributions of material properties in the
heterogeneous rock materials.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: Sec-
tion 2 introduces the modeling method for heterogeneous
rocks, followed by an outline of the PHF model in Sec-
tion 3. Next, the characteristics of a hydraulic fracture in
homogeneous rock, layered rock, and rock with distributed
inclusions and Weibull distributions of the material proper-
ties are discussed in Sections 4 and 5. Section 6 provides the
conclusions.
2 Modeling of heterogeneity in rock sample
Three types of heterogeneous rock materials are studied
in the present work: rock with layered features, rock with
distributed hard inclusions, and rock with random spatial
variations of the material properties described via a Wei-
bull distribution (Weibull, 1939). To model the heterogene-
ity of a rock, we extend the LSM proposed by Li et al.
(2017) to a general form. The extended LSM model can
 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx
be used to describe the boundaries of different constituent
materials in a heterogeneous material system, which can
then be used to control the quality of the FEM mesh.
In a heterogeneous rock sample, the material interface L
(zero-level set) between the matrix and different material
features is assumed independent of time. By ignoring the
influence of the time t, the static material interface can be
simplified to:
L ¼ fx 2 Rn : ui ðxÞ ¼ 0g ði ¼ 1; 2; 3; :::; mÞ;
in which x is the coordinate in the n-dimensional space Rn
and m the total number of different material regions. The
union of the material regions is implicitly represented as
follows:
uðxÞ ¼ minðu1 ðxÞ; u2 ðxÞ; :::; um ðxÞÞ:
2.1 Rock material with layered features
To model a rock system with layered features, the y-axis
is chosen to be in vertical direction parallel to gravity. The
material properties are assumed to vary randomly along
the y-direction. The level set function for the layered rock
material is:
ui ðxÞ ¼ pprop i ðy Þ; y bottom < y < y top ;
where pprop i ðy Þ stands for the properties of the ith material
at the y-location. Various material properties can be con-
sidered such as the elastic modulus ðEÞ, Poisson’s ratio
ðvÞ, permeability ðjÞ, and tensile strength ðP t Þ. The varia-
tions in pprop i ðy Þ can be obtained from in situ tests or
numerically generated according to the expectation and
chosen probability distribution (e.g., a uniform distribu-
tion, normal distribution, or Weibull distribution).
We now choose the 3D rock material as an example.
Figure 1 shows the distribution of the material properties
along the depth in y-direction in the FEM. The values of
the elastic modulus E are extracted from field test results.
Moreover, the mesh quality is controlled using the LSM.
Fig. 1. 3D rock sample with layered features.
Please cite this article as: M. Li, P. Guo, D. F. E. Stolle et al., Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based
hydraulic fracture model, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
3
2.2 Rock material with distributed hard inclusions
Explicit expressions for particular shapes (e.g., circles,
ellipses, polygons) via the level set function have been stud-
ied by Sukumar, Chopp, Moës, and Belytschko (2001). An
arbitrary elliptical inclusion located at a random position
ðxi0 Þ in the n-dimensional solution domain can be
expressed by introducing a random number:
ð1Þ Xn  2
x  xi0
ui ðxÞ ¼  1; ð4Þ
j¼1
aja aj
in which aja 2 ð0; 1 are random numbers that control the
semi-major length aj of the elliptical inclusions. If the rota-
tion of inclusions is included, the coordinates should be
ð2Þ
rotated by random angles h 2 ½0; pÞ and u 2 ½0; pÞ (u ¼ 0
for 2D conditions) before using Eq. (4). Depending on
ui , the point ðxÞ is in the ith inclusion domain for ui < 0,
in the matrix domain for ui > 0, and on the interface for
ui ¼ 0 (Duddu, Chopp, Voorhees, & Moran, 2011). Vari-
ous mathematical functions can be used to describe the
transition between two different materials, as discussed by
Li et al. (2017).
Figure 2 shows six cubic rock samples with random dis-
ð3Þ tributions of hard inclusions. The number of inclusions m
varies in the range of 4 300. According to the figure, when
LSM is used to control the mesh generation, the meshes
can be kept equal for different numbers of inclusions.
2.3 Rock material with random variation in properties
following a Weibull distribution
Regarding a heterogeneous rock formation with ran-
dom spatial variations in the material properties, when
the Weibull distribution is used to describe the distribution
of the material properties (Wong, Wong, Chau, & Tang,
2006), the level set function can be expressed as:
1=x
ui ðxÞ ¼ Kf1n½uðxÞg ; 0 < u 6 1; ð5Þ
where uðxÞ is a random number following the uniform dis-
tribution with the variable being the location vector x; K is
a scale parameter, i.e., the mean (or the expectation) of the
corresponding material property, and x is the shape
parameter termed as ‘‘homogeneity index”. When
x ! þ1, the rock material becomes homogeneous. In a
FEM modeling procedure, the random number u is gener-
ated at and the corresponding material properties are
assigned to different integration points of the elements.
Consider the distribution of the elastic modulus E as an
example. Regarding a 2D plain strain problem with expec-
tation K ¼ 17 GPa, for variations in the homogeneity index
x from 1.5 to þ1, the variation in E in a square rock sam-
ple with lengths Lx ¼ Ly ¼ 100 mm is illustrated in Figs. 3
(a)–(i). The degree of the material heterogeneity decreases
with increasing shape parameter x. Figure. 4 further pre-
sents the upper and lower bounds of E for different cases.
For a reduced value of x, the difference between the upper
4 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 2. 3D rock samples with randomly distributed hard inclusions.

Fig. 3. Variations in rock properties following Weibull distribution (2D problem).

Please cite this article as: M. Li, P. Guo, D. F. E. Stolle et al., Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based
hydraulic fracture model, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx 5

Based on the smeared-crack method, the PHF model

was developed for fully-coupled simulations of hydraulic
fractures considering the pore pressure–solid phase interac-
tion. To describe the fluid flow in a cracked rock, the per-
meability is expressed as a function of the mean effective
stress r0m , which increases with the crack propagation.
The governing equations of the PHF model are summa-
rized as follows:
rij;j þ qf i ¼ 0 ði; j ¼ 1; 2; 3Þ; ð6Þ
j 2 1 @p @ev
rp¼ a ; ð7Þ
l Q @t @t
1 
eij ¼ ui;j þ uj;i ; ð8Þ
2
0
Fig. 4. Upper and lower bounds of material properties in 2D rock sample rij ¼ kekk dij þ 2Geij ; ð9Þ
with material property following the Weibull distribution.
rij ¼ r0ij þ pdij ; ð10Þ
  
and lower bounds of E increases, which implies a higher jðr; pÞ ¼ bj0 exp n r0m  ap ; ð11Þ
level of heterogeneity. When the homogeneity index is very jq g
large (e.g., x ¼ 9 999), E approaches its mean of K¼ w ; ð12Þ
l
K ¼ 17 GPa.   
Figures 5 and 6 show the distributions of different mate- h ¼ tanh n r0m  P t ; ð13Þ
rial properties generated by the ABAQUS software for 2D 1 þ h UB 1  h
and 3D conditions, respectively. The modeling procedure K¼ K þ K 0; ð14Þ
2 2
with the ABAQUS software will be presented in the next
section. in which k and G are the Lamé constants of the materials,
dij the Kronecker delta, q the density of the rock mixture,
3 PHF model coupled with LSM and ui and qf i are displacement and unit body force in
direction xi , respectively; rij , r0ij , and p are the total stress
This section provides a brief outline of the coupled tensor, effective stress tensor, and fluid pressure, respec-
PHF–LSM model for the simulation of hydraulic fractur- tively; eij and ev ¼ ui;i are the strain tensor and volumetric
ing in rocks. More details can be found in Li et al. (2017). strain, respectively. The variables a and Q1 are the Biot’s

Fig. 5. Distribution of elastic modulus in 2D rock samples following the Weibull distribution with K ¼ 17 GPa and x varying from 1.5 to 100.

Please cite this article as: M. Li, P. Guo, D. F. E. Stolle et al., Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based
hydraulic fracture model, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
6 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 6. 3D rock samples with material properties following the Weibull distribution in ABAQUS.

coefficient and storage coefficient, respectively. The
hydraulic conductivity K is correlated with the intrinsic
permeability j via the viscosity l and density qw of the pore
fluid, with g being the acceleration of gravity [Equation.
(12)]. Eq. (14) is introduced to describe the dependency
of the hydraulic conductivity on the mean stress and the
damage coefficient n, and with K 0 and K UB being the
hydraulic conductivity of the intact and fully-damaged
rock, respectively. h is a measure that describes the mean
effective stress r0m relative to the tensile strength of the rock.
The post-cracking behavior and failure criterion of the
solid phase are described by the Mohr–Coulomb plasticity
and piece-wise linear hardening law.
The relation between the relative permeability k r and
degree of water saturation S w is described by the Corey cor-
relation (Corey, 1954; Brooks & Corey, 1964):
 N w
S w  S wi
k r ¼ k r0 ; ð15Þ
1  S wi  S orw
where S wi is the irreducible (minimal) degree of water satu-
ration, S orw the residual oil saturation after flooding with
water, k r0 the end point of the water relative permeability
(considered as a material constant), and N w a constant.
In addition, the degree of the water saturation is expressed
as a function of the porosity U:
U0 ð1  UÞS w0 þ U  U0
Sw ¼ ; ð16Þ
Uð1  UÞ
where S w0 is the initial degree of the water saturation and
U0 the initial porosity. In this study, we assume
N w ¼ 3:66, S wi ¼ S orw ¼ 0:15, and k r0 ¼ 0:5.
Regarding a two-phase flow in porous rock, the relative
permeability k ri for phase i is defined as k ri ¼ ji =j, in which
ji stands for the intrinsic permeability of phase i, and j
denotes the permeability of the rock with a single-phase
flow. Equation. (15) is used to evaluate the equivalent rel-
ative permeability of the fluid mixture of the original fluid
and injection fluid. In particular, the hydraulic conductivity

Please cite this article as: M. Li, P. Guo, D. F. E. Stolle et al., Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based
hydraulic fracture model, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx 7

K calculated from Eqs.  (13) and (14) is updated  to According to the elasticity theory and under plane-
k r K=lmix , where lmix ¼ l0 S w0 U0 þ linj ðS w U  S w0 U0 Þ =S w U strain conditions, if no initial pore pressure exists in the
is the mixture viscosity of the fluid in the fracture zone with rock, the breakdown pressure pb is (Hubbert & Willis,
l0 and linj being the viscosity of the original and injection 1957):
fluids, respectively. In the engineering practice, the values pb ¼ 3rmin  rmax þ rT ; ð17Þ
of linj =l0 can vary in a certain range, depending on the
where rT is the tensile strength of the rock, and rmin and
property of the injection fluid. In this study, linj =l0 ¼ 100
rmax are the minimum and maximum horizontal in situ
is adopted in the simulations. stresses, respectively. If there is an initial pore pressure pp
The coupled PHF-LSM model is implemented into the
in an impermeable elastic rock, the breakdown pressure
commercial software package ABAQUS. Figure. 7 presents
is determined as:
the flow chart for the coupled PHF–LSM model. Within
the ABAQUS framework, the material property data that pb ¼ 3rmin  rmax þ rT  /pp ; ð18Þ
are transformed from the LSM to the PHF model are trea-
with / being the porosity of the rock. For a porous and
ted as state variables. The following sections will demon-
permeable elastic rock, the breakdown pressure is affected
strate the performances of the coupled PHF–LSM model
by the elastic properties of the rock (Schmitt & Zoback,
in numerical simulations of hydraulic fracturing in different
1989):
rock types.
3rmin  rmax þ rT  app ð1  2vÞ=ð1  vÞ
pb ¼ ; ð19Þ
4 Breakdown pressure of hydraulic fracture in homogeneous 1 þ /  að1  2vÞ=ð1  vÞ
rock
in which v is Poisson’s ratio for a dry rock and a is Biot’s
poroelastic parameter (a 2 ½1; 0). The above analytical
We first present a verification of the PHF model in
solutions indicate that the breakdown pressure is primarily
which the characteristics of a hydraulic fracture in a homo-
influenced by the stress state, pore pressure, Poisson’s ratio,
geneous rock sample are examined and the breakdown
Biot’s poroelastic parameter, and porosity of the rock.
pressure is compared with the theoretical solutions.
When determining the material properties, Biot’s poroe-
In general, the difference between the initiation and
lastic parameter a is usually related to the porosity. Various
breakdown pressures is affected by the in situ stresses, rock
relations have been proposed, for example, by Geertsma
properties, borehole size, pump rate, and viscosity of the
and Smit (1961), Krief, Garat, Stellingwerff, and Ventre
injection fluid (Yew & Weng, 2014). Regarding hydraulic
(1990), Nur (1992), and Ma (2008) via the following
fractures in large boreholes with a fluid of low viscosity,
functions:
the two pressures are approximately equal (Yew & Weng,
2014). a ¼ 1  1=ð1 þ 50/Þ; ð20Þ

Fig. 7. Flow chart of coupled PHF–LSM model.

Please cite this article as: M. Li, P. Guo, D. F. E. Stolle et al., Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based
hydraulic fracture model, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
8 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx

3=ð1/Þ
a ¼ 1  ð1  /Þ ; ð21Þ

/=/c ; / 6 /c
a¼ ; ð22Þ
1 ; / > /c
 n
ð/=/c Þ ; n ¼ 2=3 ; / 6 /c
a¼ ; ð23Þ
1 ; / > /c
where /c is the critical porosity of rock, and its typical val-
ues can be found in Nur, Mavko, Dvorkin, and Galmudi
(1998). Equations. (20)–(22) are suitable for sandstone,
and Eq. (23) is applicable to various rock types. Figure. 8
shows the variation in a for /c ¼ 0:4 when the porosity /
varies from 0 to 0.3 according to Eqs. (20)–(23).
To demonstrate the influence of the porosity on the
breakdown pressure, we examine the hydraulic fracture in
a square rock sample subjected to initial stresses of
rx ¼ 60 MPa and ry ¼ 70 MPa, and a pore pressure of
pp ¼ 50 MPa (Fig. 9). The tensile strength of the rock is Fig. 9. Homogeneous rock sample with one point injection.
rT ¼ 7:59 MPa, and Poisson’s ratio is 0.228. The porosity
is assumed to vary in the range of 0–0.3, and Eq. (23) is
used to determine Biot’s poroelastic parameter with critical
porosities of /c ¼ 0.3, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8. Figure. 10 presents
the variations in the theoretical values of the breakdown
pressure with the porosity / according to Eqs. (17) and
(19). As one might expect, the breakdown pressure is
affected by both porosity and critical porosity of the rock.
For a given rock porosity, the higher the critical porosity,
the lower the Biot’s poroelastic parameter, which in turn
results in a higher breakdown pressure. An impermeable
rock has the lowest breakdown pressure.
As an example for the use of the PHF model, a FEM
simulation is performed to simulate the hydraulic fractur-
ing process of the homogeneous rock sample in Fig. 9.
The initial porosity of the sample is set to / ¼ 0:113, and
the fracturing fluid is injected at a rate of 0.005 mm/s into Fig. 10. Dependency of breakdown pressure pb on porosity / and critical
the injection line. A breakdown pressure of pb ¼ 100 MPa porosity /c of rock.
is obtained from the FEM simulation using the PHF
model. The calculated breakdown pressures are 116 MPa,
111 MPa, and 125 MPa for Eqs. (17), (18), and (19),
respectively.
Although the breakdown pressure obtained with the
PHF model approximates the analytical results, the frac-

Fig. 11. Characteristics of fracture in layered rock.

ture mechanisms and influencing factors are different in

Fig. 8. Relation between Biot’s poroelastic parameter and porosity.
the PHF and theoretical models. In the theoretical model,
the breakdown pressure is influenced by the stress state,
Biot’s poroelastic parameter, porosity, and critical porosity
of the rock. The PHF method considers the effect of the
rock porosity, stress state, stress level, and dependency of
the permeability on the stress states and fracture propaga-

Please cite this article as: M. Li, P. Guo, D. F. E. Stolle et al., Modeling hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock materials using permeability-based
hydraulic fracture model, Underground Space, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2018.12.005
 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx 9

Fig. 12. Heterogeneous rock with layered features.

Table 1
Material properties of layered rock.
Properties Injection layer Hard layer
Elastic modulus (MPa) 17 733.3 80 000.0
Density (kg/m3) 2 432.1 2 432.1
Poisson’s ratio 0.228 0.200
Hydraulic conductivity (mm/s) 1:33  108 1  1018
Tensile strength (MPa) 3.964 150
Porosity 0.05 0.05
Friction angle (°) 30 30
Dilation angle (°) 10 10

Table 2
Case study for layered rock.
Features Values
hi (mm) 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 90
hi (°) 0, 15, 30
Hard-layer tensile strength ptmax (MPa) 10, 15, 150

tion. Please note that the PHF model does not adopt the
concept of the critical porosity.

5 Characteristics of hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock

Fig. 13. FEM meshes in neighborhood of injection area for homogeneous
5.1 Propagation of fracture induced by fracking in layered and layered rocks.
rock

Regarding a hydraulic fracture in a layered rock system,

previous studies (e.g., Li et al., 2016) have shown that the
fracture propagation is affected by its incident height (hi )
and incident angle (hi ), which are defined in Fig. 11. A ser-
ies of FEM simulations using the PHF model is conducted
to investigate the effect of hi and hi by modeling the fracture
propagation in a layered rock sample taken from a bore-
hole at a depth of 3 060 m. The water pressure pw , vertical
stress rv , and horizontal stress rh at this depth are deter-
mined as 49 MPa, 71 MPa, and 60 MPa, respectively.
Figure. 12 shows the dimension and layer thickness of
the sample. To capture the details of the fracture propaga-
tion, a fine mesh zone is used in the range from 50 mm to
50 mm in x-direction (horizontal) and from 200 mm to
200 mm in y-direction (vertical). The Mohr–Coulomb Fig. 14. Injection pressure versus injection time for hi ¼ 0 , hi ¼ 12 mm,
model is used as criterion for the shearing-induced failure. and ptmax ¼ 10 MPa.

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10 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 15. Characteristics of injection pressure and its dependency on incident height, incident angle, and tensile strength of a hard rock layer. (a) hi = 0,
ptmax = 10 Mpa. (b) hi = 15, ptmax = 10 Mpa. (c) hi = 30, ptmax = 10 Mpa. (d) hi = 0, ptmax = 15 Mpa. (e) hi = 0, ptmax = 150 Mpa. (f) Propagation pore
pressure versus hi .

The location of the fracturing fluid injection is at the mid-
height of the middle layer (Layer 2). The injection rate of
the fluid is 0:001 mm=s in all simulations. The material
properties and values of hi and hi used in the simulations
are listed in Tables 1 and 2.
Using the modeling method for the rock heterogeneity
outlined in Section 2, the rock sample is discretized into
FEM meshes depending on the distribution of the material
properties. Figure. 13 shows the FEM meshes for homoge-
neous and layered rock samples in the neighborhood of the
injection area. The FEM mesh consists of 278 481 nodes
and 92 400 elements.
In general, the hydraulic-fracturing process can be
divided into three stages: fracture opening, fracture propa-
gation, and fracture closure (Wang, Sun, Au, Yang, &
Tang, 2009). The initiation and progressive opening pro-
cesses of a fracture highly depend on the leak-off pressure
and breakdown pressure, which are affected by various fac-

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 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx 11

Table 3
Material properties of rock sample with hard inclusions.
Material property Matrix Hard inclusion
Elastic modulus (MPa) 20 000 80 000
Poisson’s ratio 0.26 0.15
Hydraulic conductivity (m/s) 5  109 2  1012
Tensile strength (MPa) 5 150
Friction angle (°) 30 30
Dilation angle (°) 10 10
Porosity 0.05 0

Figure 15 presents the time history of the injection pres-

Fig. 16. Characteristics of inclusions affecting propagation of hydrauli-
cally induced fracture.
tors including the stress state, porosity, viscosity of the
fracturing fluid, and injection rate (Yew & Weng, 2014).
Figure. 14 presents the variation in the injection pressure
with the injection time obtained from the FEM simulations
using the PHF model for hi ¼ 0, hi ¼ 12 mm, and
ptmax ¼ 10 MPa. Herein, ptmax is referred to as the tensile
strength of the hard rock layer. Based on the time history
of the injection pressure, the breakdown pressure and pres-
sure required to maintain the fracture propagation and the
fracture opening and fracture propagation stages can be
explicitly identified. More specifically, the peak injection
pressure on the curve indicates the breakdown pressure,
whereas the fracture propagation stage corresponds to
the steady state of the injection pressure.
sure during 300 s of the fluid injection for different incident
angles hi , incident heights hi , and tensile strengths of the
hard rock layer ðptmax Þ. Based on Figs. 15(a)–(e), the injec-
tion pressure–time history curves are compared for the dif-
ferent layered parameters and material properties in
Table 1. With increasing incident height hi , the injection
pressure necessary to maintain the fracture propagation
decreases. However, the variations in the incident angle hi
and tensile strength ptmax of the hard rock layer only have
a minor effect on the injection pressure during the fracture
propagation. The propagation pressure increases only for a
small hi and very high ptmax [Fig. 15(f)]. The breakdown
pressure remains approximately constant in all cases, which
implies that the breakdown pressure primarily depends on
the material properties of the layer, into which the fractur-
ing fluid is injected.
5.2 Propagation of hydraulic fracture in rock with distributed
hard inclusions
This section summarizes the findings obtained from the
FEM simulations regarding the breakdown pressure and
propagation pressure as well as their dependencies on the
inclusion characteristics. These include the incident height

Fig. 17. Rock sample with two inclusions near the injection point.

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12 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 18. Breakdown pressure in rock sample with two inclusions (h ¼ 0 ).

Fig. 19. Variations in incident angle and breakdown pressure with orientation angle a of elliptical inclusions.

Table 4
Weibull distribution parameters for different material properties of heterogeneous rock.
Property K (2D) x (2D) K (3D) x(3D)
Elastic modulus (GPa) 10 1:5  100 30 4
Poisson’s ratio 0.33 1:5  100 0.3 15
Hydraulic conductivity (m/s) 5  108 1:5  100 6  109 0.8
Tensile strength (MPa) 13.8 1:5  100 5.0 5

(h), dimension of inclusions (a and b are the minor and
major principal radii of the inclusion, respectively), inci-
dent angle h, and orientation of inclusions (a) (Fig. 16).
Figure 17 illustrates the rock sample with two inclusions
located on both sides of the injection area and the corre-
sponding FEM mesh. The inclusions are assumed to be
elliptical with one principal axis fixed to 10 mm and the
other varying from 1 mm to 30 mm , which corresponds
to an aspect ratio of b/a = 1–3. The orientation angle a of
the inclusion varies from 0 to 90 , with h varying from
1 mm to 10 mm . The rock sample is an 1 m  1 m area.
The injection rate is 0:1 m=s , and the injection area with a
width of w ¼ 1 mm is located at the center of the rock
sample. The initial pore pressure and vertical and horizon-
tal stresses are 40 MPa , 70 MPa, and 50 MPa, respec-
tively. The material properties of the rock matrix and
hard inclusions are listed in Table 3.
Figure 18 shows the variation in the breakdown pressure
with the aspect ratio of the elliptical inclusions when the
incident angle is h ¼ 0 for different injection heights h (dis-
tance from the injection point to the inclusion). In this sim-
ulation series, the principal axes of the inclusions are either
horizontal or vertical, with the vertical axis being set to
ry ¼ 10 mm . When the inclusions are close to the injection
position (e.g., h ¼ 3 mm), the breakdown pressure
increases significantly with increasing particle size
(expressed by b=a ratio). As the value of h increases, the
breakdown pressure gradually decreases. However, the

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 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx 13

Fig. 20. Fracture zone propagation in 2D heterogeneous rock sample with shape parameter of x ¼ 10.

influence of h on the breakdown pressure tends to vanish
for high b=a ratios, as can be observed in the curves corre-
sponding to b=a ¼ 7 and 10 in Fig. 18(a). The influence of a
hard inclusion size and incident height on the breakdown
pressure can also be observed in Fig. 18(b), which shows
the variation in the breakdown pressure with the incident
height for circular inclusions of different sizes. The results
in Fig. 17 confirm that the influences of both inclusion
dimension and incident height tend to vanish when the inci-
dent height exceeds a certain limit.
In general, the orientation of the inclusions varies ran-
domly with a (see Fig. 16) in the range of ½0 ; 90  and
the incident angle h being a function of a, b, and a. Figure.
19 shows the relation between h and a for varying particle
shapes when a ¼ 1  9 mm and the longer axis of the
inclusion is set to b ¼ 10 mm. Consider a reference state
in which the longer axis of the inclusion is horizontal
(i.e., a ¼ 0 ). For a given incident height and gradually
rotating inclusion, the rotation of the inclusion does not
have a significant effect on the breakdown pressure for
a < 60 . When the longer axis of the inclusion approaches
the vertical position, the breakdown pressure increases. For
a chosen incident height, the breakdown pressure increases
dramatically for a ! 90 . The influence of the inclusion
orientation on the breakdown pressure is related to the dif-
ferent local stress distributions in front of the fracture near
the inclusion for different a values.
5.3 Propagation of hydraulic fracture in heterogeneous rock
with random variations in material properties
In this section, we discuss the characteristics of a
hydraulic fracture in a heterogeneous rock formation with
random spatial variations in the material properties based
on the FEM simulations and coupled PHF–LSM model.
The material properties that follow the Weibull distribu-
tion (Weibull, 1939) are generated using the method pre-
sented in Section 2. Table 4 lists the scale parameter (i.e.,
the expectation) K and shape parameter (i.e., the homo-
geneity index) x of various material properties used in
the FEM simulations for both 2D and 3D.
In the simulation of the hydraulic-fracturing processes
in the rock samples of Figs. 1 and 2, the fracturing fluid
is added at a rate of 0:001 mm=s to the injection area
for 1 h in the 2D simulations. To obtain the representative
characteristics of the hydraulic-fracture propagation with

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14 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 21. Geometry of fracture zone for T ¼ 600 s in 2D heterogeneous rock samples when x varies from 1.5 to 100.

T ¼ 525–3 600 s for x ¼ 10. The fracture zone has irregu-

Fig. 22. Variation in breakdown pressure for different heterogeneity
levels.
initial stresses and a pore pressure of rh ¼ 20 MPa,
rv ¼ 30 MPa, and pw ¼ 10 MPa, respectively, more than
30 simulations are carried out with different spatial distri-
butions of the material properties with the parameters in
Table 4.
Figure 20 shows the propagation of the fracture zones
during the hydraulic fracturing for injection times of
lar outer boundaries, which are affected by the spatial vari-
ations in the material properties. The direction of the
fracture propagation is generally perpendicular to the
direction of the minor principle stress, as one might expect.
Figure 21 compares the shapes of the crack zones for an
injection time of T ¼ 600 s when the shape parameter x
varies from 1.5 to 100. Since x characterizes the hetero-
geneity of the material properties, one might conclude that
the degree of the material heterogeneity has only a minor
effect on the evolution of the fracture zone, its height,
and propagation direction. However, the outer boundary
of the fracture zone tends to become coarser with decreas-
ing x. Please note that a lower x implies a more severe
heterogeneity in the rock.
Figure 22 presents the variations in the breakdown pres-
sure with shape parameter x. For each heterogeneity level
corresponding to a specific x, three to eight FEM simula-
tions are performed using randomly generated distribu-
tions of material properties. The mean values of each
material property are summarized in Table 4 for all simu-
lations. The lower the shape parameter, the more scattered
the calculated breakdown pressure. When the heterogene-
ity index x exceeds a certain level, the breakdown pressure
approaches a constant. Because the rock becomes less

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 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx 15

Fig. 23. Propagation of fracture zone in heterogeneous rock sample: 3D simulations.

heterogeneous with increasing x, the results in Fig. 22
reveal that the heterogeneity level does not have a signifi-
cant effect on the breakdown pressure. These observations
indirectly indicate that the coupled PHF–LSM model can
capture the salient features of hydraulic fracturing in a
heterogeneous rock.
Regarding the 3D hydraulic-fracture simulations,
Fig. 23 shows the evolution of the fracture zones for differ-
ent injection times and an initial stress state of
rv ¼ 70:0 MPa, rhmax ¼ 65:0 MPa, and rhmin ¼
58:8 MPa. The initial pore pressure is pw ¼ 49:0 MPa.
The spatial variation in the material properties is described
by the Weibull distributions and parameters listed in
Table 4. The fracturing fluid is injected at a rate of
0:005 mm=s into the injection area for 5 400 s. Similar
to the 2D cases, the direction of the fracture propagation
is perpendicular to the minor principle stress, regardless
of the heterogeneity of the material properties. For both
2D and 3D conditions, the development of a fracture zone
is mainly controlled by the stress state, whereas the hetero-
geneity of the rock material causes the outer boundary of
the fracture zone to be more irregular (Fig. 23).
6 Conclusions
This paper presents an approach to simulate hydraulic
fractures in heterogeneous rocks. An extended LSM is
introduced to model the spatial variations in the material
properties for different types of heterogeneous rocks,
including layered rock, rock with distributed inclusions,
and rock with random distributions of its material proper-
ties. Moreover, the PHF model is coupled with LSM and
implemented into a FEM software package to simulate
the hydraulic-fracturing process in rock formations. With
a constant mesh used to discretize the physical domain of
the rock formation, it is demonstrated that the coupled
PHF–LSM model can simulate hydraulic-fracturing prob-
lems for various heterogeneous rocks. The main results of
the FEM simulations are summarized as follows:
(1) Regarding layered rocks, the characteristics of a
hydraulic fracture are influenced by the incident
height and incident angle of the crack. An increasing
incident height tends to decrease the injection pres-
sure required to maintain the fracture propagation.
The variations in the incident angle and tensile
strength of the non-fracking layers have a minor
influence on the propagation pressure. The injection
pressure during the fracture propagation increases
only when the injection point is very close to the
hard rock layer (i.e., very small incident height) or
when the fluid-injection layer has a high tensile
strength.
(2) Regarding a rock with distributed hard inclusions,
large inclusions can cause changes in the breakdown
pressure under certain conditions. The breakdown
pressure increases significantly if the inclusion is close
to the injection position and the size of the inclusion

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16 M. Li et al. / Underground Space xxx (xxxx) xxx
is sufficiently large. However, inclusions far from the
injection point do not affect the breakdown pressure.
(3) Regarding a heterogeneous rock with random spatial
variations in the material properties with a Weibull
distribution, the shape parameter (i.e., the hetero-
geneity index) dominates the discreteness of the
FEM simulation results. A higher shape parameter
leads to a lower level of the material heterogeneity
and hence smaller discreteness of the modeling
results. The direction of the fracture propagation is
controlled by the stress state and is perpendicular to
the minor principle stress, regardless of the material
heterogeneity.
Acknowledgments
Drs. Peijun Guo and Dieter Stolle gratefully acknowl-
edge the partial funding provide by the Natural Sciences
and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
Drs. Ming Li and Li Liang are financially supported by
the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Univer-
sities (Grant No. N170104024) and General Program of
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
No. 51474048).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest
related to the subject matter or materials discussed in this
paper.
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