A Time-Continuation Solver for Hydraulic Fracture Propagation

We present an efficient time-continuation scheme for fluid-driven fracture propagation problems in the frame-work of the extended finite element method (XFEM). The fully coupled, fully implicit hydro-mechanical system is solved in conjunction with the linear elastic fracture propagation criterion by the Newton-Raphson method. Therefore, at the end of each time-step solve, the model ensures the energy release rate of weakest fracture tips within the equilibrium propagation regime. Besides, an initialization procedure for newly created fracture space as well as a priori estimate of stress intensity factor (SIF) growth rates are also developed to further improve the solver performance. We validate the model by the analytical solution and extend the problem to the multiple fracture propagation where stress shadow phenomenon occur.