LAUSR

Abstract Determination of the hydraulic fracture (HF) propagation patterns in fractured unconventional reservoirs typically assumes that natural fractures (NFs) persist through the full height of the reservoir/HF with uniform properties. Here a fully-coupled lattice simulator is employed to simulate the 3D interaction between HFs and NFs with spatially-varied mechanical and geometrical properties, thus capturing the dependence of HF propagation patterns on the NF cemented proportions and/or height observed in analogue laboratory experiments, and matching a 3D analytical criterion for simulation cases with different NF cohesion, friction coefficient, tensile strength, location of cemented regions, cemented proportions, and/or host rock materials.