Abstract
The production of natural gas from the gas hydrates has attracted significant attention over the last few decades. A continued challenge in gas hydrates is the estimation of the stored gas capacity. To alleviate this problem, this study uses the numerical modeling to provide insight into the distribution of hydrate in porous media and to obtain information about the application of high pressure for gas recovery. Hydrate dissociation process in porous media is modeled at the pore scale using pore network modeling by considering the uniform and non-uniform hydrate distribution. We explored the effect of gas clustering, saturation, and recovery, and their dependency on the underlying parameters including the pore size distribution, the applied pressure drops across the pore structures, and the initial hydrate saturation. We found that non-uniform hydrate distribution, larger pore sizes along with high-pressure drop, and higher initial hydrate saturations enhanced gas release. Additionally, our results confirmed the findings of the previous studies using 2D networks which studied pressure drop during hydrate dissociation in reservoirs.
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Abbreviations
- NH :
-
Theoretical hydration number
- R pi :
-
Radius of pore i
- R max :
-
Maximum radius
- R min :
-
Minimum radius
- x i :
-
A random number between zero and one
- ε i :
-
Hydrate fraction in pore i
- β D :
-
Distribution parameter
- V hi :
-
Volume of hydrate in pore i
- \(S_{\rm H}^0\) :
-
Initial hydrate saturation
- F ij :
-
Flow rate in throat ij
- ∆P ij :
-
Pressure difference of throat ij
- R ij :
-
Resistance to flow of throat ij
- µ l :
-
Dynamic viscosity of the liquid
- l ij :
-
Length of throat ij
- r ij :
-
Radius of throat ij
- G :
-
Sparse matrix
- P :
-
Vector of unknown pressure
- b :
-
Known vector
- Πij :
-
Threshold pressure
- P ijc :
-
Capillary pressure of throat ij
- P jl :
-
Pressure of pore j
- σ :
-
Interfacial tension
- P g :
-
Gas pressure
- z :
-
Compressibility factor
- n :
-
Number of mole
- R :
-
Gas constant
- T :
-
Temperature
- V :
-
Volume
- η :
-
Gas recovery yield
- n 1 :
-
Amount of initial gas
- n 2 :
-
Amount of final gas
- B :
-
A dimensionless flow resistance factor
- π :
-
Pi number
- A w, ij :
-
Cross-sectional area for wet phase
- r m :
-
Inscribed radius
- S f :
-
Dimensionless shape factor
- A :
-
Area
- P :
-
Perimeter
- F(α):
-
A corner angularity factor
- α :
-
Angularity
- k :
-
Absolute permeability
- K r :
-
Relative permeability
- Np:
-
Number of pores in each direction of the network
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Abdoli, S.M., Shafiei, S., Raoof, A. et al. Insight into Heterogeneity Effects in Methane Hydrate Dissociation via Pore-Scale Modeling. Transp Porous Med 124, 183–201 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-018-1058-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-018-1058-6