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🛢️ Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) Mechanics

Explore how hydraulic fracturing opens conductive pathways in low-permeability rock: fluid injection, fracture initiation versus propagation pressure, stress-controlled fracture orientation, and proppant transport.

Engineering & Materials3DModerate60 FPS🌍 Earth

The simulator demonstrates how injected fluid pressure must exceed the rock's minimum principal stress plus its tensile strength to initiate a fracture, how propagation pressure differs from initiation pressure once the fracture exists, how the resulting fracture orients itself perpendicular to the minimum principal stress direction, and how proppant becomes trapped in the fracture to keep it conductive after pumping stops.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the injection pressure and pump rate to watch the wellbore pressure build toward the breakdown point where the fracture initiates, then observe how the pressure needed to keep it growing drops and stabilizes. Change the orientation and magnitude of the minimum principal stress to see the fracture plane reorient accordingly, and add proppant concentration to see how well the fracture stays open once injection stops.

💡 Did You Know?

Because fracture orientation is governed entirely by the direction of the minimum principal stress, engineers can often predict, before drilling even begins, which way underground fractures will grow just by mapping the regional stress field.

⚙ Under the hood

frackinggeomechanicspetroleum engineeringshale gasrock stresswellboreproppant

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install