| dc.description.abstract | Currently, many engineering challenges addressing the flow of mixtures exist. Slickwater hydraulic fracturing is an economical method of unconventional resource extraction that can accelerate mixture flow. For this thesis, the flow of a sand-water mixture and its dune shape were observed. The aim of this study is to investigate similarities between simulated and experimental results by comparing peak height and volume ratios. The flow described above is also called a "proppant flow" or "frac sand flow", one of the ways of enhancing shale gas production. After horizontal drilling, solid material is used to keep an induced hydraulic fracture open. The permeability of a proppant with cracks developed during production can endure high closure stress by the mantle. An example of this was expressed by the following experiment and simulation of the study. An experimental study was conducted by a single narrow channel with the flow of a mixture. Particle size and volume injection rate are the main parameters that we controlled. Sand concentration as well as density were restricted for the experiment. Also, the total particle number and inlet speed of the mixture for the simulation were calculated with certain parameters. Among numerous models, the standard K-ε turbulence model was employed as a tool for analyzing solid and fluid materials for this task. We tried to verify the accuracy of these Eulerian-Eulerian methods by comparing the sand particle’s diffusion and deposition results between a simulation and experiment. Comparison of both results was conducted by a post image processing tool on each step, time by time. The study contains specific cases of hydraulic fracturing, and with this, validation of the turbulence model simulation accuracy is one of the aims. The comparison of each result is not only important regarding cost and time saving aspects, but also in showing that a simulation of each case is more efficient than time by time experiments. | en |
