SGBEM/FEM for Non-Planar Evolution of Hydraulic Fractures in 3D Elastic Media

P301 SGBEM/FEM for Non-Planar Evolution of Hydraulic Fractures in 3D Elastic Media 1 JAROON RUNGAMORNRAT MARY F. WHEELER MARK E. MEAR Center for Subsurface Modeling Institute of Computational Engineering and Sciences The University of Texas at Austin Texas USA A computational technique has been developed for simulating non-planar evolution of hydraulic fractures in three dimensional elastic media. The technique utilizes the finite element method (FEM) to model the fluid flow within the fracture while employing a symmetric Galerkin boundary element method (SGBEM) to treat the elasticity problem associated with a crack in an unbounded domain. The SGBEM is based upon