Triangular Shape Factor for Pseudo Steady State Flow in Fractured Wells

Pseudo-steady state (PSS) flow is a dominant time-dependent flow regime during constant rate production from a closed reservoir. Using Chen's (2016) exact analytical solution for the PSS flow of a fully-penetrated fractured vertical well with finite conductivity in an elliptical drainage area, the computational time required to solve for the PSS constant b_D,PSS is greatly reduced. This constant is the inverse of the productivity index, J_D,PSS, which is often used in modern fracture design optimization. This paper correlates the PSS flow of a fully-penetrated fractured vertical well in triangular drainage areas to Chen's solution for an elliptical drainage area using shape factors. Numerical solutions for the PSS constant are created using COMSOL, which uses a 2D model of the fractured reservoir to output time and pressure data. For equivalent reservoir properties, the numerical data for the triangular reservoir yields a PSS constant that can be directly compared to the PSS constant obtained using Chen's solution. Lack of access to the Subsurface Flow Module of COMSOL greatly limited the number of simulations that could be run, thus more simulations would significantly improve the accuracy and applicability of the triangular shape factor by making it a function of the penetration ratio through nonlinear regression methods.