Temperature and Pore Pressure Dependencies of the Mechanical Behavior of Methane Hydrate–Bearing Fine-Grained Sediment
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 24, Issue 11
Abstract
In the South China Sea, a significant amount of methane hydrate exists in the sediment containing fine-grained soil. Increasing temperature and/or decreasing pore pressure can remarkably degrade the mechanical characteristics of this methane hydrate–bearing fine-grained sediment (HBFS). In this study, several compression tests under triaxial stress condition on HBFS are performed with changing temperature and pore pressure. The experimental results reveal that the HBFS specimen has an enhanced stiffness and failure strength characteristic under lower temperature and/or higher pore pressure conditions. An improved phase state parameter H is presented as a characterization for the temperature and pore pressure condition, which considers the capillary effect for HBFS with wide pore size distribution. The secant modulus and failure strength tend to linearly increase with the rising improved phase state parameter H. The internal friction angle is independent of the temperature and pore pressure, while the cohesion exhibits a significantly linear increase with the rising improved phase state parameter H. In addition, the shear–dilatancy curve shifts to the right with the rising improved state parameter H owing to the enhanced cementing strength of hydrate–soil cluster. These research findings are beneficial for grasping the mechanical behavior of HBFS. Furthermore, this research also provides data support for building the constitutive model of HBFS during methane hydrate recovery.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and codes generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
The investigators express great appreciation for the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52378333), the Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (2024GXNSFBA010387), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 12262009).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 24 • Issue 11 • November 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 27, 2023
Accepted: May 24, 2024
Published online: Sep 3, 2024
Published in print: Nov 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Feb 3, 2025
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Bodies of water (by type)
- Chemicals
- Chemistry
- Coasts, oceans, ports, and waterways engineering
- Continuum mechanics
- Dynamics (solid mechanics)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Environmental engineering
- Hydration
- Hydraulic engineering
- Hydraulic structures
- Laminating
- Material mechanics
- Material properties
- Materials engineering
- Materials processing
- Mathematics
- Measurement (by type)
- Mechanical properties
- Methane
- Organic compounds
- Organic compounds
- Parameters (statistics)
- Pollutants
- Pore pressure
- Pressure (type)
- River engineering
- Sediment
- Solid mechanics
- Statistics
- Structural engineering
- Structures (by type)
- Temperature (by type)
- Temperature effects
- Temperature measurement
- Thermal properties
- Thermodynamics
- Water and water resources
- Water management
- Waterways
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