High energy gas fracturing is a simple approach
of applying high pressure gas to stimulate wells by generating
several radial cracks without creating any other
damages to the wells. In this paper, a numerical algorithm
is proposed to quantitatively simulate propagation of these
fractures around a pressurized hole as a quasi-static phenomenon.
The gas flow through the cracks is assumed as a
one-dimensional transient flow, governed by equations of
conservation of mass and momentum. The fractured
medium is modeled with the extended finite element
method, and the stress intensity factor is calculated by the
simple, though sufficiently accurate, displacement extrapolation
method. To evaluate the proposed algorithm,
two field tests are simulated and the unknown parameters
are determined through calibration. Sensitivity analyses are
performed on the main effective parameters. Considering
that the level of uncertainty is very high in these types of
engineering problems, the results show a good agreement
with the experimental data. They are also consistent with
the theory that the final crack length is mainly determined
by the gas pressure rather than the initial crack length
produced by the stress waves.