Charles A. Kang

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

[email protected]

Charles Kang is an engineer experienced in developing software tools for the modeling, optimization, and visualization of subsurface and energy systems.

Prior to ResFrac, he served as R&D Director at Tiandi Energy, an oilfield data services company. Charles received a PhD in energy resources engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering physics from UC Berkeley. Charles’s academic research is focused on the optimization of energy systems and hydraulic fracturing.

His awards include:

Hank Ramey Award for Outstanding Research and Service to the Department, Stanford Department of Energy Resources Engineering, 2014
Illich-Sadowsky Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship, Stanford Vice Provost for Graduate Education, 2012

Click here for a list of Charles’ publications.

Charles's posts

Production Impact of Horizontal Fractures

At the 2025 SPE International Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, we (Dontsov, Zoback, McClure, and Fowler) presented “Hydraulic Fracture Propagation Along Bedding Planes Might Be More Prevalent Than We Think” (SPE-226637). The paper reviewed case studies with evidence of horizontal or bedding plane fractures from microseismic, fiber optics, core observations, and casing deformation.

Testing the new Kryvenko model for proppant washout

What controls proppant placement during hydraulic fracturing? As described in Chapter 8 from McClure et al. (2025), ResFrac incorporates a variety of physical processes – viscous drag, gravitational settling, hindered settling, clustered settling, bed slumping, and more. In addition, ResFrac accounts for the complex physics associated with proppant flowing out of the wellbore (Dontsov, 2023; Ponners et al., 2025).

$Horizontal fracture initiated along weak bedding plane or frictional interface in ResFrac$

Horizontal hydraulic fractures in ResFrac

Horizontal hydraulic fracture propagation is believed to be widespread in shale plays where the frac gradient approaches the overburden – such as the Vaca Muerta, Utica, and Montney. However, horizontal propagation is nearly always ignored in hydraulic fracture modeling. In ResFrac, we are obsessed with ‘getting the physics right’, and so naturally, we extended our simulator to handle horizontal fracturing. The first version of this new capability was released earlier this year. We are eager to start collecting feedback from users, which will help us to fine tune the algorithm and workflow.

Charles A. Kang

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Charles Kang is an engineer experienced in developing software tools for the modeling, optimization, and visualization of subsurface and energy systems.

Charles's posts

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