Pore Scale Study on Dissociation and Transportation of Methane Hydrate

Abstract

Methane hydrate, recognized as a promising clean energy resource, undergoes complex multiphase dynamics during dissociation, involving intricate interactions between fluid flow, heat transfer, and mass transport phenomena. It is crucial to explain its physical behavior in the dissociation process from the pore scale. This paper proposes an improved flow model, which simulated the dissociation process of methane hydrate at pore scale. As the first effort in literature, the characteristics of hydrate domain are considered to better reproduce the multiphase flow, heat and mass transfer behavior. The evolution of flow velocity, temperature and saturation was simulated. The results indicate that the improved flow model, based on the Darcy-Brinkman-Stokes equation, can accurately replicate the multiphase flow transfer, heat, and mass transport phenomena during hydrate dissociation. Furthermore, the flow characteristics of hydrate domain significantly influence methane extraction efficiency. This study offers novel insights into pore-scale modeling of multiphase flow systems involving phase change phenomena.