In this study,a numerical model is developed to investigate the hydrate dissociation and gas production in porous media by depressurization.A series of simulation runs are conducted to study the impacts of permeability characteristics,including permeability reduction exponent,absolute permeability,hydrate accumulation habits and hydrate saturation,sand average grain size and irreducible water saturation.The effects of the distribution of hydrate in porous media are examined by adapting conceptual models of hydrate accumulation habits into simulations to govern the evolution of permeability with hydrate decomposition,which is also compared with the conventional reservoir permeability model,i.e.Corey model.The simulations show that the hydrate dissociation rate increases with the decrease of permeability reduction exponent,hydrate saturation and the sand average grain size.Compared with the conceptual models of hydrate accumulation habits,our simulations indicate that Corey model overpredicts the gas production and the performance of hydrate coating models is superior to that of hydrate filling models in gas production,which behavior does follow by the order of capillary coating>pore coating>pore filling>capillary filling.From the analysis of t1/2,some interesting results are suggested as follows:(1) there is a "switch" value(the"switch"absolute permeability) for laboratory-scale hydrate dissociation in porous media,the absolute permeability has almost no influence on the gas production behavior when the permeability exceeds the "switch" value.In this study,the "switch" value of absolute permeability can be estimated to be between 10 and 50 md.(2) An optimum value of initial effective water saturation Sw,e exists where hydrate dissociation rate reaches the maximum and the optimum value largely coincides with the value of irreducible water saturation S wr,e.For the case of Sw,Swr,e,there are different control mechanisms dominating the process of hydrate dissociation and gas production.
Xuke RuanMingjun YangYongchen SongHaifeng LiangYanghui Li
Positioning drag anchors in seabed soils are strongly influenced not only by the properties of the anchor and soil,but also by the characteristics of the installation line.The investigation on the previous prediction methods related to anchor positioning demonstrates that the prediction of the anchor position during dragging has inevitably introduced some key and unsubstantiated hypotheses and the applicability of these methods is limited.In the present study,the interactional system between the drag anchor and installation line is firstly introduced for the analysis of anchor positioning.Based on the two mechanical models for embedded lines and drag anchors,the positioning equations for drag anchors have been derived both for cohesive and noncohesive soils.Since the drag angle at the shackle is the most important parameter in the positioning equations,a novel analytical method that can predict both the variation and the exact value of the drag angle at the shackle is proposed.The analytical method for positioning drag anchors which combines the interactional system between the drag anchor and the installation line has provided a reasonable theoretic approach to investigate the anchor behaviors in soils.By comparing with the model flume experiments,the sensitivity,effectiveness and veracity of the positioning method are well verified.
