Hydraulic fracturing in limited entry (LE) completion designs relies on maintaining a high bottom hole treating pressure (BHTP). LE requires high perforation friction in order to maintain an even distribution of the hydraulic fracturing slurry. As sand exits the perforations, the perforations start to erode. The erosional change in the perforation alters the desired perforation friction and subsequent BHTP. As operators rely on multistage hydraulic fracturing to generate economic production, the issue of perforation erosion becomes inherently repetitive from stage to stage, and cumulatively a significant issue. The industry has seen how a perforation can change from a before-and-after perspective with downhole cameras and imaging techniques before and after treatments. However, a more detailed understanding of the dynamic process of perforation erosion can give a better expectation of perforation performance throughout a hydraulic fracturing treatment and not just pre-treatment compared to post-treatment. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a quickly emerging tool in the industry. CFD aims to model fluid flow by numerically solving the Naiver-Stokes equations within a specified domain. Along with modeling fluid systems, CFD has the capability to model dispersed particles within the fluid. Once the particles are introduced into the fluid, the domain can also be eroded away within the CFD model. By utilizing the erosional capabilities of CFD, paired with the flow of a hydraulic fracturing slurry, perforation erosion can be investigated transiently throughout an entire hydraulic fracturing stage. This work presents a better dynamic understanding of perforation erosion rather than just a "before versus after" comparison. The CFD modeling methodology used to achieve the correct erosional pattern observed in the field is presented. Throughout this work, six different hydraulic fracturing completion parameters are investigated to determine the respective roles in perforation erosion. The six parameters include proppant size, proppant concentration, proppant sphericity, fracturing fluid viscosity, initial perforation diameter, and proppant concentration ramping schedules. By investigating the impact that controlled design parameters have on perforation erosion, perforation erosion can be better anticipated to deliver improved completion results.

Hydraulic fracturing in limited -entry (LE) completion designs relies on maintaining a high bottomhole treating pressure (BHTP). LE requires high perforation friction to maintain an even distribution of the hydraulic fracturing slurry. As sand exits the perforations, the perforations start to erode. The erosional change in the perforation alters the desired perforation friction and subsequent BHTP. As operators rely on multistage hydraulic fracturing to generate economic production, the issue of perforation erosion becomes inherently repetitive from stage to stage and cumulatively a significant issue. The industry has seen how a perforation can change from a before -and -after perspective with downhole cameras and imaging techniques before and after treatments. However, a more detailed understanding of the dynamic process of perforation erosion can give a better expectation of perforation performance throughout a hydraulic fracturing treatment and not just pretreatment compared to post-treatment.Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a quickly emerging tool in the industry. CFD aims to model fluid flow by numerically solving the Naiver-Stokes equations within a specified domain. Along with modeling fluid systems, CFD has the capability to model dispersed particles within the fluid. Once the particles are introduced into the fluid, the domain can also be eroded away within the CFD model. By utilizing the erosional capabilities of CFD, paired with the flow of a hydraulic fracturing slurry, perforation erosion can be investigated transiently throughout an entire hydraulic fracturing stage.This work presents a better dynamic understanding of perforation erosion rather than just a "before vs. after" comparison. The CFD modeling methodology used to achieve the correct erosional pattern observed in the field is presented. Throughout this work, four dif-ferent hydraulic fracturing completion parameters are investigated to determine the respective roles in perforation erosion. The four parameters include proppant size, proppant concentration, fracturing fluid viscosity, and proppant concentration ramping schedules. By investigating the impact that controlled design parameters have on perforation erosion, perforation erosion can be better anticipated to deliver improved completion results.

Successfully treating each cluster within a hydraulic fracturing stage is a key objective for "plug-n-perf" well completions. Most operating companies would agree that the main underlying desire for a successful completion is related to future production capability. In unconventional reservoirs, propped and conductive hydraulic fractures are the primary completion result that drives production and reserve recovery. When designing a treatment, the spacing of clusters is critical to optimizing production and reserve recovery parameters, and therefore, even proppant distribution across a single stage delivers a well the greatest potential for optimized production performance. Diverting the fracturing fluid and proppant evenly across the clusters in a stage allows the greatest opportunity for each cluster to produce equally and drain the associated reservoir volume. Generating equal, producing fractures across a horizontal wellbore is a difficult problem that operators are still trying to solve. This work models the fluid and proppant distribution across a field-scale, 250-ft long, horizontal hydraulic fracturing stage, replicating realistic field conditions. By utilizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD), this paper investigates the effected proppant distribution results from a fracturing stage mimicking the presence of both a leaking plug and the impacts of stress shadowing. The proppant concentration throughout the wellbore, along with internal wellbore pressure and velocity, are also reviewed to gain an understanding of the effect of the field conditions. Additionally, this paper illustrates the effect of different proppant "ramping" conditions during the fracturing stage. Proppant ramping schedules can be smooth or sharp when increasing proppant concentration, which alters the proppant concentrations throughout the wellbore and associated perforation clusters. Unanticipated alterations of the proppant concentration within the wellbore can lead to early screenouts. Gaining a better understanding of the proppant distribution and concentration inside the wellbore can lead to improved designs of hydraulic fracturing completions.

Treating every perforation cluster during a hydraulic fracturing treatment is a key element to ensuring the effectiveness and overall success of the well stimulation process. With completion costs being 50% of the total well cost in shale reservoirs and the reliance on hydraulic fracturing as a key technology for development, operators are concerned with maximizing the well performance by optimizing the stimulation design. In multi-stage horizontal well treatments, equal diversion of the fracturing fluid and proppant to all perforation clusters is desired, as bias proppant distribution may cause early screen-out and/or leave some fractures unpropped. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that numerically solves Navier-Stokes equations and predicts the fluid flow behavior within a specified computational domain. CFD also has the capability to model the flow of dispersed particles within a fluid through the use of a discrete phase model (DPM). Recently, CFD has been utilized by various researchers as a tool to model fracturing slurry flow within perforation clusters to predict proppant transport and distribution trends. This work models the fluid and particle flow using CFD DPM within a single hydraulic fracturing stage to improve our understanding of the proppant transport and distribution between multi-perforation clusters. The paper presents the CFD modeling methodology and results of two main perforation designs including traditional 0° phasing, vertical perforations and modified 45° angled shot perforations. To be able to compare the modeling to actual field conditions and field diagnostics, slickwater fracturing fluid with 40/70 and 100 mesh sand at a varying proppant concentration from 1 to 2 ppg are used in the model to replicate a field-scale 15-cluster stage. The modeling outcomes are then compared and validated to actual well post-job diagnostics; proppant tracers and perforation erosion signs captured by downhole cameras. These field results help to calibrate the CFD models, which then allowed sensitivity analysis and design improvement.