ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Georeservoirs
Permeability evolution model of high-pressure waterflooding with dual fractal characteristics of mechanical property and fracture structures
Provisionally accepted
- 1Sinopec Shengli Oilfield Co, Dongying, China
- 2China University of Petroleum Beijing, Changping, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The complexities of evaluating permeability evolution during high-pressure waterflooding and subsequent production are primarily governed by rock mechanical damage and extensive micro-fracture deformation. In this study, we propose a general permeability evolution model for high-pressure waterflooding that incorporates the dual fractal characteristics of mechanical property and fracture structures. Both fracture aperture distribution and Young's modulus distribution are described using fractal scaling laws. For a given fractal unit with a specified Young's modulus, an analytical model is developed to quantify fracture aperture variation during elastic deformation and the failure process based on damage mechanics. The damage-induced reduction of Young's modulus after failure is further considered in the production stage, and an analytical solution for fracture-medium permeability is established through double integration within the framework of fractal geometry. A percolation-based effective-medium approximation is employed to calculate matrix-fracture permeability. The effects of fracture-related fractal properties, rock mechanics-related fractal properties, and reservoir properties (porosity, matrix permeability, minimum Young's modulus) on matrix-fracture permeability are systematically investigated. The key results demonstrate that matrix-fracture permeability is most strongly influenced by fracture fractal dimension and reservoir properties, particularly porosity, matrix permeability, and minimum Young's modulus.
Keywords: Permeability evolution, high-pressure waterflooding, Fracture, fractal geometry, analytical solution
Received: 07 Oct 2025; Accepted: 17 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Zhang, Zhao, Li, Xue and Song. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wenhui Song
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.