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A particle-scale study of the triaxial compression behavior of methane hydrate-bearing sands

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Abstract

Macroscopic geomechanical properties of methane hydrate-bearing sands (MHBSs) have attracted much scholarly attention. But the associated particle-level mechanisms often rely on assumptions. In this paper, triaxial compression tests and numerical simulations using discrete element method (DEM) are combined to study the unique mechanical properties of MHBS at the particle scale. The triaxial compression tests understand the basic mechanical properties of MHBS, and the experiments results are used for DEM modeling and parameter calibration. Small cementing particles are used to simulate methane hydrate, showing dispersion and coalescence distributions in sediments to simulate different hydrate spatial distributions. The simulation results show that in MHBS samples, the increasing hydrate saturation enhances the cementation network as well as the hydrate-related micro-force chains, and the particles in the cementation network jointly share the loading. The hydrate cementation is restricted by the high effective confining pressure as the cementation network was subjected to an ultimate strength. For hydrate cementation failure, the high effective confining pressure increases the proportion of shear breakage, but tensile breakage is the dominant failure form. The sample with hydrate coalescence distribution behaves strain hardening, while the sample with hydrate dispersion distribution yields later and shows strain softening with a higher peak strength. Finally, the stress-induced anisotropy in microstructure fabrics is observed, and the development of radial fabrics is hindered by hydrates, especially the coalesced hydrates.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 51890911, U20B6005 and 52222608) and the LiaoNing Revitalization Talents Program (Grant XLYC2007099).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, People’s Republic of China

    Zeshao You, Yanghui Li, Haijun Wang, Xiang Sun, Shi Shen, Peng Wu & Yongchen Song

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  1. Zeshao You
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  2. Yanghui Li
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  4. Xiang Sun
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Contributions

Investigation, Methodology, Visualization and Writing—original draft: ZY; Conceptualization, Funding acquisition and Writing—review & editing: YL; Formal analysis and Investigation: HW; Methodology: XS; Validation: SS; Writing—review & editing: PW; Project administration and Supervision: YS.

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Correspondence to Yanghui Li or Yongchen Song.

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You, Z., Li, Y., Wang, H. et al. A particle-scale study of the triaxial compression behavior of methane hydrate-bearing sands. Acta Geotech. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-023-02043-8

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