Reply To: Hydraulic Fracturing Simulation (Discontinuum)

[Rob]

OK, thanks for the explanation. Please also note that I (as Ansys staff) am not permitted to give detailed engineering responses to comply with Export Law. 

Mechanical has a fracture model, so could be used for crack formation (I don't know much about it as I'm on the fluids side). Alternatively, Rocky (DEM solver) has various particle contact models, one of those should permit breakup of agglomerations with different effects for when they touch and subsequently break if the effect is cyclic. Flow, is Fluent's domain. Supercritical fluids are OK, but phase change in those can be very complex. Convergence may be difficult simply due to the pressures involved in these sorts of models. 

You may want to read SPE 122361. "Understanding the Near-wellbore Phenomena for Hydraulically Fractured wells: A Comprehensive Inflow Performance Numerical Model"; Maria-Alejandra Jimenez, SPE and Juan Carlos Chavez, SPE, Senergy (GB) Ltd. This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2009 SPE European Formation Damage Conference held in Scheveningen, The Netherlands, 27–29 May 2009.  For an idea of near well flows, fracture wasn't covered but it's potentially a useful "old" reference for the wider literature review. 

So, yes, you can do something with the Ansys tools but it's not an easy project. I also advise doing some background reading of the solver theory to get a better idea of the tools. Rocky documentation should be available via the Ansys Help in 2024R1, and that's due "soon".