Morphology of multiple constant height hydraulic fractures versus propagation regime

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate morphology of simultaneously propagating hydraulic fractures from a horizontal well. There are certain situations, in which stress interaction between the fractures is not influential and this results in a very similar geometry of each fracture. At the same time, for some other parameters, the stress interaction is very strong, so that the fractures interact with each other and develop complex shapes. By focusing on the constant height hydraulic fractures, it is shown that there is a dimensionless parameter that controls such a behavior. A series of numerical examples is presented to illustrate the findings.