Effect of confining pressure on mechanical behavior of methane hydratebearing sediments.pdfVIP

PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT Volume 38, Issue 5, October 2011 Online English edition of the Chinese language journal Cite this article as: PETROL. EXPLOR. DEVELOP., 2011, 38(5): 637–640. RESEARCH PAPER Effect of confining pressure on mechanical behavior of methane hydrate-bearing sediments Li Yanghui*, Song Yongchen, Yu Feng, Liu Weiguo, Wang Rui Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China Abstract: Synthesized gas hydrate in lab was mixed with kaoline to form core samples, so as to simulate the hydrate-bearing sedimen- tary layers in the seabed. Under conditions of different confining pressure, triaxial compressive tests were conducted on hydrate-bearing sediments with different volume content of kaoline. The results show that: (1) The failure strength of gas hydrate-bearing sediments in- creases with the confining pressure at a low-pressure stage. The strength tends to decline gently with further increases of confining pres- sure. (2) The modulus of elasticity E0 keeps unchanged under various confining pressures. But the secant modulus E50 presents a great dependency on the confining pressure. Secant modulus increases to the peak and then decreases with the increase of confining pressure; (3) The internal friction angles of gas hydrate-bearing sediments are not sensitive to the volume ratio of kaoline, but its cohesion depends on the volume ratio of kaoline. The sediment strength increases with the increase of kaoline content. Key words: natural gas hydrate; mechanical property; seabed sediment; triaxial testing; safe extraction Introduction