The effect of saturation conditions on fracture performance of different soundless cracking demolition agents (SCDAs) in geological reservoir rock formations

Abstract

Fracture stimulation using soundless cracking demolition agents (SCDAs) is a potential alternative technique to induce high-density fractures in sedimentary reservoir-rock as an auxiliary technique to improve the efficiency of enhanced oil and gas recovery efficiencies. However, to date, its application has been limited to fracture stimulation in dry rock masses. Therefore, using modified SCDAs, which can be used for underwater rock fracturing, a series of experiments was conducted to investigate the fracturing performance of SCDAs in saturated rock masses. 18 coarse-grained sandstone specimens were saturated in water, oil, and NaCl brine and fractured using three different SCDA types: a sta..