Shale reservoir has been proved to have large storage of energy resource. By the commonly-used hydraulic fracturing process, proppant is taking an essential role to keep the fracture open after pumping and its behaviour is strongly related to the hydraulic conductivity and production rate. However, several proppant impairment mechanisms, including proppant diagenesis, proppant embedment, proppant flowback and fine generation & migration, have strong detrimental effect on proppant behaviour, which directly causes the reduction fracture width and the subsequent influence on hydraulic conductivity and production rate. 

This study focus on major proppant impairment mechanisms to figure out the influence of different potential factors (like fracturing fluids, temperature, cyclic stress) on proppant behaviour. It is expected to achieve higher initial and lower reduction for both fracturing width and hydraulic conductivity by optimising the proppant behaviour.