Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353

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Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jngse

Local asymmetric fracturing to construct complex fracture network in tight T

porous reservoirs during subsurface coal mining: An experimental study
Delei Shanga,b,∗, Guangzhi Yinb,c,d, Yuan Zhaoc, Bozhi Dengc, Chao Liuc, Xiangtao Kange, Jun Luc,
Minghui Lib,∗∗
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, PR China
b
State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, PR China
c
College of Resources and Environmental Science, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, PR China
d
State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Methane Drainage in Complex Coal Gas Seam, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, PR China
e
Mining College, Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550025, PR China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Hydraulic fracturing to enhance permeability of tight reservoirs is meaningful but difficult in constructing of
Asymmetric fracturing complex fracture network. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of tight porous reservoir stimulation in
Hydraulic fracturing the context of hydraulic fracturing to increase the fracture complexity as much as possible. The simulation
Complex fracture network experiments were performed to reasonably establish the relation between the laboratory results and the field
Unconventional natural gas
fracturing operations. Large size stratified and intact samples were casted to resist the size and boundary effects
Fluids jet
Underground coal mining
by mixing river sand and/or pulverized coal with concrete cement and freshwater in specific proportions. The
samples with artificial slot orienting were casted to understand the fracture initiation, orientation, and deflection
mechanisms considering the influence of caprock structure and re-fracturing without temporary plugging. The
samples were tested under the scaled geostress conditions of corresponding in-situ stress with a true triaxial
loading system, and the reasonable dimensionless groups derived from the literature. Consequently, this study
proposed an asymmetric fracturing method based on the experimental results considering the scaling structure of
overlying-reservoir-underlying in porous reservoirs. The local asymmetric fracturing is a type of reservoir sti-
mulation method with small scale high-pressure fluids such as carbon dioxide，liquid nitrogen, water, etc., jet
cutting to create slot and perforation for the aid of fracture initiation and orientation. Hydraulic fractures were
influenced by the fracture-induced stress shadow and ratio of the maximum to minimum horizontal stress. The
validation and comparative results showed that, compared with the re-fracturing, the asymmetric fracturing
significantly increased the complexity of fracture network. Although the applicability of the asymmetric frac-
turing depending on the corresponding engineering pilots, the derived method could hopefully address the
properties of the strata structure of the reservoirs efficiently. Therefore, it has a high potential for application in
the fracturing of local underground coal seam and special-trap type oil gas reservoirs to construct fracture
network.

1. Introduction for reservoir stimulation within tens to hundreds of meters. Although

The preference for clean energy appears to be irreversible (Obama,
2017), which requires continuous growth of unconventional energy
resources, such as the coalbed methane, shale gas, and tight sandstone
gas or geothermal energy. However, these porous reservoirs usually are
of low permeability, and need fracturing stimulation to enhance the
permeability. Hydraulic fracturing, also known as hydrofracturing or
fracking (Liu et al., 2016b; Howell et al., 2017), is an effective method
the fracturing probably triggers thousands of small-to medium-sized
unnoticed earthquakes (Walsh and Zoback, 2016) and other environ-
mental concerns (Gandossi, 2013; Meng, 2015; Whitmarsh et al., 2015),
as the most common cost-effective technique for oil and gas production,
it is also widely used in gas extraction to control gas disasters and
safeguard the coal mining operations.
The reservoir stimulation is to target complex fracture network
(Warpinski et al., 2008; Fisher et al., 2002), as shown in Fig. 1, which

∗
Corresponding author. Room 401, Ho Sin Hang Building, Haidian District, Beijing, 100084, PR China.
∗∗
Corresponding author. Campus A, Chongqing University, No. 174 Shazheng Street, Shapingba District, Chongqing, 400030, PR China.
E-mail addresses: delei.shang@gmail.com, deleishang@tsinghua.edu.cn (D. Shang), mhli@cqu.edu.cn (M. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2018.09.005
Received 16 August 2017; Received in revised form 27 July 2018; Accepted 8 September 2018
Available online 12 September 2018
1875-5100/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
D. Shang et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of fracture complexity (Warpinski et al., 2008 and
Fisher et al., 2002), the color images please check online version, the same
below.
probably contributes to self-supporting and gas extraction (Hou et al.,
2016) as the mitigation of fracture localization instabilities (Bažant
et al., 2014). Conventional fracturing usually creates specific main
fractures propagating backward asymmetrically (Zhou et al., 2010)
rather than the complex fracture before interacting with natural frac-
tures (Hubbert and Willis, 1957; Mahrer, 1999; Morgan and Aral, 2015;
Bose et al., 2015). Thus, the fracturing efficiency decreases significantly
as a result of the creating ineffective or simple fractures.
2. Literature review
To approach sufficient reservoir stimulation, numerous fracturing
methods flourished in oil and gas industry and underground coal
mining, such as, directional fracturing with vertical multi-radial bore-
holes (Guo et al., 2017), with controlling boreholes (Liu et al., 2015),
with deep hole controlling blasting (Zhai et al., 2012) and fracturing
with pulse/cyclic injection (Li et al., 2013; Patel et al., 2017). As an
alternative, ultrahigh/high pressure fluids jet that was widespread ap-
plication in many fields (Matsuki et al., 1990; Soyama et al., 1996; Lu
et al., 2009; Zou et al., 2015; Lin et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2015a; Wu
et al., 2018) was employed for slotting before/without hydraulic frac-
turing in coal reservoirs. Under the guidance of the creating slotting,
the breakdown pressure of hydraulic fracturing can be probably de-
creased (Dehghan et al., 2016; He et al., 2017a) compared with pneu-
matic fatigue fracturing (Xie et al., 2016) and supercritical carbon di-
oxide (Zhang et al., 2017). Obviously, the fracturing with slot orienting
is advantageous for tight reservoirs stimulation if the cutting direction
and drilling program as well as the fracturing operations were co-
ordinated reasonably. However, separately hydraulic slotting with a
drilling interval of only a few meters often leads to much more drilling
engineering as well as inefficient borehole sealing and slagging; the
slotting is also blind in the direction without effective guidance. Despite
lots of emerging waterless/water-reducing fracturing techniques (Yan
et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2017), aforementioned methods were constrained
by the limited stimulation range as the poor understanding of fracturing
mechanism (Blunschi et al., 2017), the risk of undesirable fractures
(Sesetty and Ghassemi, 2015), and the lack of technical equipment (Cha
et al., 2014; Cai et al., 2016). Thus, it is urgent to improve the existing
fracturing techniques to safeguard the local dangerous regions, for ex-
ample, the underground coal seam uncovering. It is a new attempt to
integrate hydraulic fracturing and hydraulic slotting (Yan et al., 2015),
as is the alternative asymmetric fracturing to construct fracture network
in the study.
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Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353
This study dedicates to lay the foundation of asymmetric fracturing
with artificial slot orienting in tight reservoirs. The asymmetry refers to
injection of pressurized fluids to equal or unequal pore pressure in the
specific technical boreholes with adjacent and asymmetric orienting
measurements, the key of which is to change and control the induced
stress around the boreholes distributing asymmetrically. The applied
stress typically influences on the fracture network geometry (Wang
et al., 2016) and may induce the stress shadow (Wu et al., 2017; Zhao
et al., 2017) which facilitates fracture re-orientation and creation of
blocky rock masses (He et al., 2017a, 2017b) as the optimal fracture
spacing itself decreases the in-situ stress contrast (Liu et al., 2016a).
Thus, the asymmetric fracturing enables favorable orienting fracturing
getting the utmost out of the borehole or fracture induced stress
shadow, the reservoirs or caprock are cut to create slot and perforation
as an aid of fracture orientation using the high-pressure fluids jet (Li
et al., 2000; Kulekci, 2002; Lu et al., 2011; Aminossadati et al., 2014).
So that the favorable injection/reinjection is conducted.
In addition, as a sealing layer like the top-bottom strata adjacent to
the coal seams, the caprock effects that some studies mentioned above
have not focused on (Cui et al., 2013; Jiang et al., 2016) can prevent the
upward migration of buoyant fluids (Wang et al., 2015b) and influence
the fracture growth (Huang and Liu, 2017). This study considers the
scaling laws or the possible size and boundary effects unlike the pre-
vious laboratory studies (Huang, 2009; Jiang et al., 2016; Huang and
Liu, 2017) to avoid a highly exaggerated injection rate and a very low
fluid viscosity (Sarmadivaleh and Rasouli, 2015).
3. Sample preparation and experimental method
3.1. Material components and sample preparation
First, large size stratified and intact samples were casted and well
cured, respectively, according to the concrete curing specifications at
sizes of 500 × 500 × 500 mm for plan A and 1140 × 600 × 600 mm
for plans B and C to resist the size and boundary effects. The sample
material components consisted of filling agents (river sand and pul-
verized coal), cementing agents (ordinary Portland cement at a strength
grade of 32.5 MPa and gypsum powder), and additive agent (the re-
tarder, aqueous solution of borax at a concentration of 0.1% by total
mass of filling agents and cementing agents). The modelling materials
of the reservoirs and overlying/underlying stratum were stirred well
and prepared by mixing the river sand and/or pulverized coal with the
ordinary Portland cement and borax solution in the specific propor-
tions, as shown in Table 1. The physical and mechanics properties of the
sample materials were collected in Table 2. When the reservoirs were
casted, the modelling materials were put into the molds layer by layer.
The difference is that the casting time interval of the sample of plan A is
longer (≥12 h) than that of plans B (∼4 h) and C (∼1 h), showing
more obvious discontinuity. The setup of modelling borehole and
slotting is available in Section 3.3.
Table 1
Sample sizes, material components and texture.
Plan Sample size/mm Material components based on the Texture
mass ratioa
A 500 × 500 × 500 Roof and floor with river sand: With
Portland cement = 1:0.5; bedding
B 1140 × 600 × 600 Coal seam with pulverized coal: No bedding
Portland cement: gypsum
powder = 1:1:1
C 1140 × 600 × 600 River sand: Portland cement = 1:1, No bedding
without overlying and underlying
strata
a
Material strength: low strength (modelling coal seams of plans A and B) →
medium strength (modelling overlying and underlying stratum of plans A and
B) → high strength (modelling porous reservoirs of plan C).
D. Shang et al. Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353

Table 2 response rate of the hydraulic cylinders varies from 0 to 100 mm/
Physical and mechanical properties of the sample materials. min ± 0.1 mm/mm. The multi-channel (up to 64 channels) data real-
Coal seam (Huang, 2009) E/GPa σt/MPa σc/MPa c/MPa φ/° time acquisition system is also integrated with stress and displacement
measurement accuracies of ± 0.5% and ± 0.1 mm, respectively. Nine
0.53 0.66 5.09 1.10 27.82 control channels controlling nine piston cylinders separately, as shown
in Fig. 2 (a) left, are realized by a control mode with full closed loop and
Overlying and underlying stratum 3.35 0.86 19.47 2.61 60.00
Porous reservoirs of plan C (Zhu and E/GPa ν σc/MPa k/mD Φ/% self-programming of stress and displacement at a precision of 0.01% of
Xu, 2012) 15.00 0.23 48.50 0.50 1.85 the full-scale value. Fig. 2 (b) presents the servo supercharger equipped
with a fluid pressurization chamber with 160 mm diameter and 200 mm
stroke and a separate data acquisition system with a data acquisition
3.2. Experimental setup frequency of 0.83 Hz.

The experimental system employed the multi-field coupled large-scale

3.3. Experimental method and program
coalmine dynamic disaster simulation test system, as shown in Fig. 2 (a),
equipped with a true triaxial loading system with a deformation of <
When the samples were casted, the slots were simulated by filling
0.1 mm at full scale. All the vertical loads and one direction of the
with the package cardboards at a size of 45 mm (diameter) × 3 mm
horizontal loads of up to 10 MPa were produced by four hydraulic cy-
(thickness) that could still maintain a specific shape after soaked in
linders with a range of 1000 kN and a piston stroke of 100 mm. The
water-containing modelling materials. Fig. 3 (a) and (b) showed a
other horizontal load up to 10 MPa was produced by a hydraulic cy-
slotting drilling in the sample of plan A, while Fig. 3 (c) illustrated two
linder with a range of 2000 kN and a piston stroke of 150 mm. Con-
orthogonal slotting drilling layout symmetrically in the sample of plan
sidering the load limit of the experiment device, the experimental loads
B. A sample with orthogonal perforations and a singular slotting drilling
for the modelling of the in-situ stress need to be scaled accordingly. The
was symmetrically set up in the sample of plan C, and the slot orienting

Fig. 2. Experiment setup for fracturing: (a) multi-field coupled large-scale coal mine dynamic disaster simulation test system and stress control software interface, (b)
servo supercharger.

345
D. Shang et al.
was configured along the direction of the minimum and intermediate
principal stresses, as shown in Fig. 3 (d). The plan A was prepared to
investigate the influence of top-bottom strata on fracture propagation,
plan B for deflection mechanism of hydraulic fractures under the re-
fracturing, and plan C for the laws of fracture initiation and propaga-
tion in the context of the asymmetric fracturing.
According to in-situ stress measurements (Cai et al., 2013), the
average maximum, intermediate, and minimum principal stresses at a
buried depth of ∼1061 m are 43.56, 27.24, and 23.28 MPa in Permian
strata of Pingdingshan coalfield, respectively. Thus, the maximum, in-
termediate, and minimum principal stresses imposed were scaled ac-
cordingly in this study. The loading was applied stepwise with the
stresses increasing. Fig. 2 (a) right shows the control software interface.
The fracturing tests in samples of plan A, B, and C were conducted and
finished to continue recording the pressure-time curve holding the
pump piston motionless until the servo supercharger was stopped. The
displacement of the fracturing fluids (Newtonian fluids) injected into
the model borehole with 8 mm radius and 250 mm length was
Q = 0.06 m3/h. The samples were uniformly and quasistatically pres-
surized stepwise at a constant loading rate of 2 kN/s (approximately
0.01 MPa/s) to a specific stress state. The monitoring methods of the
hydraulic fractures were supplemented in the Appendix.
Research personnel occasionally has to consider the limitation of
experimental conditions. Thus, lab experiments should be performed to
reasonably establish the relation between the laboratory results and the
field operations. The initiation and propagation of on-site hydraulic
fractures can be attributed to three mechanisms, namely viscosity,
toughness, and leak-off dominated regimes (Bunger et al., 2005). The
fracture propagation for a radial fracture is primarily dominated by the
fracture toughness during the fracture initiation and the final stage of
fracture propagation, and by viscosity-dominated during other stage of
fracture propagation (Detournay, 2004; Gulrajani and Nolte, 2000).
The leak-off regime can be considered negligible if the reservoirs tend
to be impermeable; otherwise, Eq. (1) (de Pater et al., 1994) should be
satisfied to validate the fracture size.
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Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353
Fig. 3. Schematic of the borehole layout and stress
state: (a) stress state of the artificial singular slot for
orienting fracturing (plan A: σ1 = 1.99 MPa and
σ2 = σ3 = 1.64 MPa); (b) sample of plan A with a
prefabricated singular slot for orienting fracturing
casted layer wise; (c) layout of the orienting frac-
turing with prefabricated double slots (plan B); and
(d) layout of the asymmetric fracturing with a pre-
fabricated singular slot and orthogoal perforation
with a vertical phase angle (plan C).
KIC < 2Pn rf / π (1)
Here, KIC is the fracture toughness, MPa·m0.5; Pn is the net fracture
pressure, MPa; rf is half length of the fracture, m; π is pi, the ratio of the
circumference of a circle to its diameter. This study focused on the
process of fracture propagation that was dominated by the viscosity
without considering the leak-off. Fortunately, based on the dimensional
analysis, several normally used dimensionless groups were designated
according to the scaling laws (de Pater et al., 1994). Thus, the injection
rate, injection time, fluid viscosity, etc., conducted in this study were
constrained by the dimensionless group κ as shown in Eq. (2) (Savitski
and Detournay, 2002). If the dimensionless group κ < 1, the fracture
propagation will be viscosity dominated (κ > 4 for toughness domi-
nated). Here, the intermediate variables K ′ = (32/ π )1/2KIC μ′ = 12μ , and
E′ = E /(1−ν 2) were defined to simplify Eq. (2). The μ is the viscosity,
Pa·s; E is Young's modulus, GPa; ν is Poisson's coefficient; Q0 is the
constant injection flow; t is the time of fracture initiation and propa-
gation in the lab experiments, s.
1/18
t2
κ = K ′ ⎜⎛ 5 3 13 ⎟⎞
⎝ μ′ Q0 E′ ⎠ (2)
The experimental parameters can be validated if the dimensionless
groups of the laboratory experiments derived from the parameters
listed in Table 3 were met, as suggested in Eq. (3) (Detournay, 2004).
qt r σ KIC E r3
Nt = ; NK l = K l ; Nσ = c ; NKIC = ; NE =
r3 q E Er 1/2 μq (3)
Here, r is the wellbore radius, m; q is the injection rate, m3/s; Kl is
the leak-off coefficient, m/s0.5; E is the crack opening modulus,
E = E /4(1 − ν 2) , GPa; σc is the uniaxial compressive strength, MPa; σt is
the uniaxial tensile strength, MPa; c is the cohesion, MPa; φ is the in-
ternal friction angle, °; k is the permeability, mD; Φ is the porosity, %;
Nt is the dimensionless group of experiment time; NKl is the di-
mensionless group of leak-off; Nσ is the dimensionless group of stress;
NKIC is the dimensionless group of crack formation; NE is the
D. Shang et al.
Table 3
Material properties of coal rock and model blocks.
Symbol t r q Kl
3 0.5
Unit s m m /s m/s
Prototype 1200 0.04 1.33 × 10−1 1 × 10−4
Model 60 0.01 8.06 × 10−6 1 × 10−3
Scaling ratio St = 20 Sr = 4 Sq = 16, 501 SKl = 0.1
dimensionless group of elastic deformation; Sx is the scaling ratios of
the model to the prototype; x represents some specific parameter.
4. Result analysis
4.1. Fracturing with slot orienting
To understand the fracture initiation, orientation, and deflection
mechanisms considering the influence of overlying and underlying
strata, a stratified sample containing abundant lamination with a sin-
gular slot was prepared in the context of plan A, as shown in Fig. 2 (a)
and (b). The fluid pressure–time diagram showed that the fluid pressure
rapidly increased up to the first maximum value (slot open, as shown in
Fig. 4, ①) after starting the servo supercharger, then the fluid pressure
dropped significantly in a short time, which was probably an abnormal
situation due to the slot blocking during the sample casting; and frac-
ture in the sample have not yet started to initiate at this stage. Subse-
quently the fluid pressure gradually increased to reach the second
maximum value (the abnormal breakdown, as shown in Fig. 4, ②) until
the hydraulic fracture extended to the up and down interface and the
interspace, the fluid pressure decreased again at the end of this stage. At
the third stage, the fluid pressure increased to a new maximum value
(the breakdown, as shown in Fig. 4, ③), then finally slowly decreased to
the shut-in pressure. At the same time, the fracturing fluid was si-
multaneously ejected infiltrating the sample surface, and the data ac-
quisition continued to collect the fluid pressure holding the pump
piston motionless during the fracture closure.
The first fluid pressure rise/drop was probably attributed to the
non-uniform fracture initiation of the preformed slot with material
blockage; the second fluid pressure rise/drop was probably the actual
fracture initiation and propagation along the modelling discontinuities;
whereas the third fluid pressure rise/drop could be caused by a sharp
Fig. 4. Time-dependent fluid pressure curve of fracturing with an orienting slot.
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Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353
E σc KIC μ
0.5
GPa MPa MPa·m Pa·s
1.76 8.02 0.23 1 × 10−3
0.53 5.09 0.17 1 × 10−3
SE = 3.32 Sσc = 1.58 SKIC = 1.35 Sμ = 1
increase in the frictional resistance of the fracture interface caused by
fracture deflecting and extending unsteadily. The first and second rise/
drop variation of the pressure during the injection were distorted
compared to the third one that should be the actual breakdown pres-
sure. As the fractures shown in Fig. 5, Plan A used a stratified sample
with abundant lamination; when the sample was fractured with a sin-
gular slot orientation, in the case of the relatively rich discontinuous
structures and low simulative geostress conditions, the irregular pump
curves were easily generated such as Fig. 6 in reference from Hou et al.
(2016), Fig. 3 from Meng et al. (2016), and Fig 10 from Liu et al.
(2018a). The fluctuated injection pressure is probably derived from the
propagation of the non-planar or new creating fracture and interaction
between the interface/discontinuity and fracturing fluids. And the non-
planar fracture and new creating fracture usually generate a relatively
high surface roughness and fracture extending pressure than the usual,
which can be explained that the twist fracture and new creating frac-
ture need much more fracture energy; and have a relatively great
fracture friction, i.e., need much more dissipated energy when several
hydraulic fractures extending simultaneously with multiple nonlinelar
fracture fluids flow, as Fig. 5 from Zhou et al. (2016), Fig. 11 from Liu
et al. (2018a). Consequently, the injection pressure and extending
pressure are closely related to the fracture geometries and the number
of the fractures.
Fig. 5 (a) and (b) showed the surface morphology of the sample after
the fluid injection. Fig. 5 (c) displayed the fracture propagation situa-
tion after the artificial orienting fracturing with a slot. The white col-
loidal matter (addition-type bi-component RTV silicone rubber, in-
troduced in the Appendix) appeared when the cut was made to 1/4
plane area. The fracture extension range was depicted based on the
distribution of the white silicone rubber. The fractures extended for-
ward along the direction of the prefabricated slot, then got to propagate
horizontally. Only part of the fracturing fluid was immersed in the roof
and the floor, indicating that the fractures did not penetrate the top and
bottom interface, but continued to extend in the coal seam between the
top and bottom interfaces (according to Huang and Liu, (2017), whe-
ther the fracture would penetrate the interfaces depended on the in-
terfacial bonding strength). Fig. 5 (d) illustrates that the fracture shape
was clearly visible when 1/2 area of the sample was cut. The fracture
edge had an approximate elliptic curve without obvious corners. Note
that the silicone rubber can only enter a fracture aperture of approxi-
mately 0.3 mm, which roughly reflects macro-crack distribution.
Therefore, no follow-up study with the silicone rubber monitoring was
performed unless requirements, and the pigments were employed for
fracture tracking and monitoring in the following experiments. In a
word, the slot for orienting fracturing is favor of hydraulic fracture
initiation. In a word, the twisted fractures are very likely to produce,
and the slot guiding has some effect on fracture initiation in hetero-
geneous reservoirs.
4.2. Re-fracturing with slot orienting
Following the plan A, the sample of plan B was tested to further
understand the fracture initiation, orientation, and deflection me-
chanisms in the context of the re-fracturing without temporary plug-
ging. The fluid pressure-time plot showed that the fluid pressure rapidly
increased during the first fluid injection, and then swiftly increased to
D. Shang et al.
Fig. 5. Orienting fracturing with singular slot. The white RTV silicone rubbers represents the fracture trace and morphology: (a) top view, (b) side view, (c) fracture
at 1/4 plane area of the artificial cut, (d) fracture at 1/2 plane area of the artificial cut (the monitoring methods of hydraulic fracture can be found in the Appendix).
Fig. 6. Fluid pressure vs. time in the context of injection and reinjection.
the breakdown pressure of ∼3.72 MPa at 37 s after the servo super-
charger turned on, as shown in Fig. 6. Then, the fluid pressure rapidly
decreased to approximately 38.68% of the breakdown pressure ac-
companying by a slight pressure oscillation. Finally, the data acquisi-
tion continued holding the pump piston motionless. When the second
injection began at 205 s, the fluid pressure rapidly increased approxi-
mately equal to the pressure of the previous Ⅰ stage, and finally did not
change dramatically any more. The pressure drops versus time, i.e., the
pressure gradient, was 0.0157, 0.0156, and 0.0204 MPa/s occurred at
the duration of 87.41, 82.49 and 66.62 s in stages Ⅰ, Ⅱ, and Ⅲ, re-
spectively, as shown in Fig. 6. There was no significant difference in
pressure gradient between the Ⅰ and Ⅱ stage, which indicated that the
flow friction of the fracture wall did not significantly increase. In other
348
Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353
words, there were almost no new fractures created. The final fracture
morphology showed that the first and second injection initiated the
incipient fractures that were created in the first fracturing/injection, as
shown by the red line delineation of the fracture boundary in Fig. 7 (a)
and (b). Actually, the fractures formed did not extend to the sample
surface according to the lab observation during the first and second
injections.
Compared with the Ⅰ and Ⅱ stages, the fluid pressure gradient ob-
viously increased in the Ⅲ stage, which indicated that the flow friction
of the fracture wall increased significantly. One possible explanation is
that the fracture size increase leads to increase in frictional resistance of
the fluid flow. In fact, this inference has been validated by the results in
Fig. 7. The fracture extended to the sample surface according to the
observation during the third injection, implying that the pressure gra-
dient significantly increased compared with the previous Ⅰ and Ⅱ stages,
i.e., the flow friction and leak-off area of the fracturing fluid in the Ⅲ
stage was clearly larger than that of the previous Ⅰ and Ⅱ stages. The
third injection not only opened the originally closed fractures that were
created in the Ⅰ and Ⅱ stages, but also facilitated the creation and
propagation of branch fractures during the Ⅲ stage, thereby produced
some rock fragments and numerous branch fractures, as shown in Fig. 7
(c) and (d), where the yolk yellow line defines the boundary of sec-
ondary fractures. The results shown in Fig. 7 suggested that the small
size fractures initiated in the fractured reservoirs typically before
reaching the breakdown pressure combining with the analysis of the
fluid pressure-time plot, as shown in Fig. 6.
The top-bottom strata adjacent to the coal seam was fractured,
which was favor of the rock fragments and branch fractures getting
interconnected and were significant for the gas production in the con-
text of singular slot for orienting re-fracturing, as shown by the frac-
tures with mottled colors in Fig. 7 (c) and (d). The so-called seepage
force generated due to the pore fluid overpressure and tectonic stresses
(Ghani et al., 2013) in the formation containing natural flaws. This is
because the stress field in the vicinity of the fractures created is not yet
D. Shang et al.
Fig. 7. Fracture morphology and trace of the re-fracturing with a singular slot
orienting, in the coal seam: (a) side view perpendicular to the fracture surface,
and (b) perpendicular to the sample edge; in the floor strata: (c) side view
perpendicular to the sample edge and (d) side view perpendicular to the frac-
ture surface (fracturing fails in the left borehole because of plugging, plan B).
349
Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353
fully adjusted when the re-fracturing is conducted; stress shadow
usually occurs around the fractures during the pore fluid overpressure.
The stress shadow around the fractures contributes to the fracture
network under high in-situ stress and complex geological conditions.
Similarly, the produced overpressure may activate the native fractures
in the fractured coal reservoirs. Therefore, it is hopeful to be advanta-
geous to conduct re-fracturing in the fractured coal reservoirs with the
increasing in mining depth.
4.3. Asymmetric fracturing with slot orienting
To investigate the fracture initiation, orientation, and deflection
mechanisms of asymmetric fracturing, a sample depicted in plan C was
fractured and re-fractured. The fluid injection derived fracture trace on
the surface of the sample was depicted in Fig. 8 (a), and the fractures
extended throughout the sample surface and communicated with each
other. Fig. 8 (c) showed that the fluid pressure rapidly increased to the
incipient breakdown pressure at approximately 11.43 MPa, then slowly
decreased when the injection was performed in the borehole with the
artificial slot orienting. After the servo supercharger was restarted, the
fluid pressure increased to the reopen pressure at 7.04 MPa and pres-
sure peak at 10.05 MPa, and the pressure-time curve irregularly oscil-
lated. The fluid was found on the sample surface after an extending
period at the re-fracturing stage. The final fracture morphology and
trace suggested that few fractures were deflected and partially inter-
connected with each other, as shown in Fig. 8 (b), which was a little
different in contrast with the results shown in Fig. 7, and the fracture
interfaces extended throughout the entire sample more smoothly ex-
tending along the prefabricated slot with a small angle of deflection
after the fractures revealed.
The fluid pressure slowly increased initially when the fracturing
fluid was injected into the borehole with the aid of perforation before
rapidly increasing to the breakdown pressure of ∼7.41 MPa. Then, the
pressure rapidly decreased to ∼3.25 MPa and repeatedly oscillated
between 2.87 MPa and 3.57 MPa, as shown in Fig. 8 (e), indicating that
the fracture propagation was intermittent, and the reservoirs were
ruptured sporadically and probably not continuously. The servo su-
percharger was stopped when the fluid penetrated the sample, but the
data acquisition continued until the fractures closed (the fluid pressure
became approximately zero). When the servo supercharger was re-
started, the fracture was then reopened, and the fluid pressure rapidly
increased initially and slowly reached the maximum value, indicating
that the fractures continued to extend. The flow friction increased as the
fracture grew, thereby resulting in an increase in the fluid pressure.
After a period, the fluid pressure time curve exhibited a slight oscilla-
tion, which was probably caused by a deflection or partial interaction
between the fractures. Subsequently, the fracturing fluid appeared on
the sample surface, and the servo supercharger was turned off until the
pressure kept almost constant (i.e., approximately equal to zero). As
shown in Fig. 7 (d), (f), (g) and (h), the derived fracture trace of the
overall view on the sample surface suggested that several fractures
deflected and completely interacted with each other. Majority of these
twisted fractures were probably attributed to the stress field inter-
ference. The red line in Fig. 8 (d), (f), (g) and (h) represents the trace of
the fracturing fluid edge in the incipient fracturing prior to the sub-
sequent re-fracturing, while the yolk yellow lines denoted the fracture
traces of the fracturing fluid edge in the re-fracturing.
The traces suggested that the multi-fractures were derived and got
redirection. However, the re-fracturing practically continued to extend
the incipient fractures. As the fracturing process at the first stage shown
in Fig. 8 (e), the pigment got accumulation on the fracture wall. The
process can be integrated as the pigment accumulating near the crack
tip when the fracture propagated slow, leading to a relatively dark color
imprint in contrast with that of the fast situation. Actually, the fractures
were always filled with the fracturing fluid containing the red pigment
components when the servo supercharger was stopped, or the pump
D. Shang et al. Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353

Fig. 8. Injection and fracture trace and morphology of the asymmetric fracturing: (a) overall view on the surface of the sample, Plan C; a borehole with a (b) slot
orienting and (d) aid of the perforation, and pressure-time curve of the fracturing fluid with a (c) slot and (e) perforation orienting; the derived fracture at (f) 1/8, (g)
1/4, and (h) 1/2 volume of the sample.

piston was held motionless. Consequently, the deposition of the red
pigment would last for a longer time on the fracture interfaces filled
with the pressurized fluid. The longer the red pigment deposited, the
darker color on the opened fracture interfaces displayed compared to
that in the incipient fracturing stage. Thus, the color of the newly
created fracture surface was lighter than that of the incipient fracturing
stage as the leak-off and soak effects on the micron-level fracture
channels, as shown in Fig. 8 (h).
5. Implications of the field operation and future research
The simultaneous fracturing (Chitrala et al., 2013; Zou et al., 2016)
and re-fracturing have been used in oil and gas industry to create the
complex fracture for many years. However, the hydraulic fractures tend
to extend along the discontinuities, particularly in the presence of
natural fractures (Llanos et al., 2017), and the stress ratio was critical to
the features of the rock (Song et al., 2017). As a result, the fractures
may get multiple twists when the ratio of the maximum to minimum
horizontal geostress becomes less than 1.7 (Liu et al., 2016b, 2018b) or
1.9 (Xie et al., 2016); while the fracture network will decrease with the
increase in the horizontal geostress ratio (Wang et al., 2016). The
fracture deflection that the stress shadow produces probably takes place
under the specific re-orientation conditions. Therefore, simultaneous
injection of some technical boreholes in the context of asymmetric
fracturing is more suitable for the fractured reservoirs with a small
horizontal stress difference. However, the stress field near the fractures

350
D. Shang et al.
Fig. 9. Implications of the field asymmetric fracturing with temporary plugging of the cryogenic freeze (the planar projection of drilling bottom in a coal seam,
southwest China).
required an appropriate stress recovery and rebalance duration. Then,
the stress state of the stress-relieved zone will become nearly stable.
Otherwise, only the opening and extending the native cracks are not
conducive for the fracture network creation. Consequently, the re-
fracturing tends to extend the pre-existing fractures rather than gen-
erate the new fractures if the re-orientation conditions are dissatisfied.
In contrast, the creating fractures tends to deflect in the context of the
asymmetric fracturing with the slot and perforation orienting.
The stimulation efficacy and efficiency of the asymmetric fracturing
could be well improved with the aid of the newest fracturing methods.
And it has a high potential for application in local fracturing by max-
imizing the associated stress shadow in the vicinity of the creating and
natural fractures. For instance, the most dangerous local regions where
the coal uncovering at the crossdrift is conducted in the underground
coal mining need to be fracturing stimulation to control the gas dis-
asters. It is a mining engineering case in southwest China, as shown in
Fig. 9. The fracture network is probably produced if the reinjection is
well integrated with the cryogenic fracturing (Qin et al., 2018; Yin
et al., 2018). Firstly, the temporary plugging based on the fracture
freezing is created using the injected cryogenic agents after the first
time of hydraulic fracturing, as the gray fracture trace shown in Fig. 9.
Then, the second time of hydraulic fracturing can be performed to fa-
cilitate the fracture deflection to create fracture network, as the blue
fracture trace shown in Fig. 9.
The alternatively buried brittle and ductile formations can greatly
impact the propagation of hydraulic fractures. However, the pore
pressure affects fracture orientation (Charlez, 1997; Wang et al., 2013);
and the influence of pore pressure in fracturing coal cannot be ne-
glected when the coal reservoirs are under the re-fracturing operation,
because the pore pressure facilitated crack initiation along the direction
of the relative great hydraulic gradient (Yan et al., 2015). The process
can be reproduced that the crack tip infiltrates at first and then gen-
erates the pore pressure; and the pore pressure continues increasing to
the breakdown pressure resulting in fracture initiating and extending
when the fracture toughness of the rock mass is overcome. However,
351
Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 59 (2018) 343–353
the slotting interval should be optimized to reduce possible unexpected
propagation during encountering the geological structure. Continued
research is required through theoretical, experimental, and on-site ob-
servations in the context of asymmetric fracturing to determine the
optimal and effective operations. And the relevant stress reorientation
zone also need to be optimized to approach a reasonable drilling layout
and favorable fracturing techniques.
The effective range of the proposed fracturing method is tempora-
rily available only through the experimental results in this study as the
lack of complex on-site geological settings (Figueiredo et al., 2017). The
complex cleats, the fracture density and orientation, etc., have a pro-
found effect on the fracturing process, which cannot be easily re-
presented by the simplified lab samples without much more important
geological details. Although the stratified samples are partially con-
sidered in the study, the heterogeneity of the material is also not well
presented and needs further investigation. The applicability of the
asymmetric fracturing also requires engineering pilots particularly in
fractured porous reservoirs, such as the low permeable coal and shale
gas reservoirs. However, the proposed asymmetric fracturing could ef-
ficiently address the fracturing effectiveness partially considering the
reservoir properties of the layered structure. Before that, the induced
stresses caused by the coupling of the stress shadow and the fracturing
fluids should be realistically captured in the future research to get a
better insight into the fracturing processes with proppant and variable
injection rate.
6. Conclusions
This study addressed the effectiveness of the reservoir stimulation in
the context of hydraulic fracturing in low permeable porous reservoirs,
which remained a continuous hot topic for the conventional/un-
conventional oil and gas industries. Accordingly, the stratified and in-
tact samples were prepared by mixing river sand and/or pulverized coal
with concrete cement in specific proportions and adding sufficient
water to overcome the size and boundary effects. The complexity of the
D. Shang et al.
hydraulic fractures is subject to the heterogeneity of the material and
the caprock structure. A comparative study of asymmetric fracturing
combined with re-fracturing was then conducted based on the indoor
experiments. The preliminary results showed that the asymmetric
fracturing with slot and perforation orientation significantly increased
the fracture complexity, thereby resulting in the deflection of several
fractures compared with the re-fracturing that only normally generated
a few new fractures. Furthermore, the far field stress of the hydraulic
fractures was affected by the fracturing-induced stress shadow and
controlled by the in-situ stress. Consequently, the asymmetric fracturing
was optimized by considering it in combination with simultaneous in-
jection and reinjection. Local asymmetric fracturing could efficiently
address the stimulation effectiveness partially considering the reservoir
properties of the strata structure. And this proposed method has a high
potential for local fracturing by maximizing the significant increase in
the fracture-induced stress to approach an increase in fracture com-
plexity.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Grant Nos. 51434003, 51874053, 51374256), the Chongqing
Graduate Student Research Innovation Project (Grant No. CYB16030),
the Talent Project of Guizhou University (Grant Nos. 2015-15), and the
Key Project of the State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics
and Control (Grant No. 0222002109134). The authors are also writing
to thank respected Executive Editor Prof. Pan, Dr. Zhang, journal
manager Rohini Shivaram, and three anonymous reviewers for their
meticulous and responsible review as well as valuable comments on the
preliminary versions of the manuscript.
Appendix. Monitoring Method of Hydraulic Fracture
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2018.09.005.
Declarations of interest
The intellectual property involved in this article belongs to Prof.
Guangzhi Yin, Chongqing University.
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