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Effect of Methane Gas on Acoustic Characteristics of Hydrate-Bearing Sediment-Model Analysis and Experimental Verification

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Abstract

Gas leakage is an important consideration in natural systems that experience gas hydrate accumulation. A number of velocity models have been created to study hydrate-bearing sediments, including the BGTL theory, the weighted equation, the Wood equation, the K-T equation, and the effective medium theory. In previous work, we regarded water as the pore fluid, which meant its density and bulk modulus values were those of water. This approach ignores the presence of gas, which results in a biased calculation of the pore fluid’s bulk modulus and density. To take into account the effect of gas on the elastic wave velocity, it is necessary to recalculate the bulk modulus and density of an equivalent medium. Thus, a high-pressure reactor device for simulating leakage systems was developed to establish the relationship between wave velocity and hydrate saturation in methane-flux mode. A comparison of the values calculated by the velocity model with the experimental data obtained in this study indicates that the effective medium theory (EMT, which considers gas effects) is more applicable than other models. For hydrate saturations of 10%–30%, the result ranges between EMT-B (homogenous gas distribution) and EMT-B (patchy gas distribution). For hydrate saturations of 30%–60%, the results are similar to those of the EMT-B (homogenous gas distribution) mode, whereas hydrate saturations of 60%–70% yield results similar to those of the EMT-A mode. For hydrate saturations greater than 80%, the experimental results are similar to those of the EMT-B mode. These results have significance for hydrate exploitation in the South China Sea.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported financially by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2017YFC0307600), the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (No. QNLM2016ORP0207), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41906067), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2018M632634), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province of China (No. ZR2019BD051), and the Marine Geological Survey Program (Nos. DD20190221 and DD20190231). We are grateful to other colleagues for helpful discussions and inputs at the Key Laboratory of Gas Hydrate, Ministry of Land and Resources. We are sincerely grateful to the anonymous referees for their great constructive comments.

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  1. The Key Laboratory of Gas Hydrate, Ministry of Natural Resources, Qingdao Institute of Marine Geology, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Qingtao Bu, Gaowei Hu, Changling Liu, Jianye Sun, Chengfeng Li & Qingguo Meng

  2. Laboratory for Marine Mineral Resources, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Qingtao Bu, Gaowei Hu, Changling Liu, Jianye Sun, Chengfeng Li & Qingguo Meng

  3. Qingdao Geological Engineering Survey Court, Qingdao, 266100, China

    Jie Dong & Tongju Xing

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  1. Qingtao Bu
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Bu, Q., Hu, G., Liu, C. et al. Effect of Methane Gas on Acoustic Characteristics of Hydrate-Bearing Sediment-Model Analysis and Experimental Verification. J. Ocean Univ. China 20, 75–86 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-021-4354-7

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