Abstract
Methane hydrate dissociation is a process of heat and mass transfer, and pressure and temperature are the most important parameters. The influence of pressure and temperature on the hydrate dissociate relationship between the two parameters is the determinant for gas hydrate dissociation; meanwhile, the gradients of these parameters are the sources of flow and gas production. In this study, a 1D simulator was developed for investigating the effects of well pressures (3 MPa, 5 MPa, and 8 MPa) and initial temperatures (274 K, 279 K, and 284 K) in the process of methane hydrate dissociation by depressurization. The simulation results showed that the well pressure and initial temperature have significant effects on pressure distribution, temperature distribution, and gas production. A lower well pressure and higher initial temperature can promote methane hydrate dissociation. The combined effect of hydrate dissociation and fluid flow can cause more substantial changes in pressure distribution, temperature distribution, and gas production, especially in the initial stage of the methane hydrate dissociation process. However, the changes of the parameters tend to disappear as mining time goes on. There is a difference in the influences of exploitation well pressure and initial temperature on the stability time of gas production.
Highlights
Methane hydrate is a kind of potential clean energy source, and research on it has occurred all over the world in recent decades
A mathematical model was proposed for methane hydrate dissociation by depressurization in porous media
We developed a new code to solve the model, which can be used to investigate the effects of well pressure and initial temperature of reservoir on some important parameters for the hydrate dissociation process
Summary
Methane hydrate is a kind of potential clean energy source, and research on it has occurred all over the world in recent decades. Methane hydrate remains stable under a certain pressure and temperature; under marine conditions this is typically a few degrees above the melting point of ice and pressures from a few to several tens of MPa. First approximation to the stability field of gas hydrates was introduced by Van der Waals and Platteeuw [1] and is commonly known as the VW-P model that is based on the first law of thermodynamics and the microscopic property of hydrate. First approximation to the stability field of gas hydrates was introduced by Van der Waals and Platteeuw [1] and is commonly known as the VW-P model that is based on the first law of thermodynamics and the microscopic property of hydrate This early model suggested the calculation of the chemical potential in hydrate which has been used by later researches. Many experimental studies [4,5,6,7,8,9,10] investigated the effect of pressure and temperature on hydrate formation and dissociation
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