Large-scale physical simulation is essential for advancing our understanding of natural gas hydrates exploitation mechanism.However,cylinder-shaped simulators often face challenges in balancing large volume,controllab...Large-scale physical simulation is essential for advancing our understanding of natural gas hydrates exploitation mechanism.However,cylinder-shaped simulators often face challenges in balancing large volume,controllability,and comprehensive monitoring.In this study,we developed a fan columnshaped hydrate simulator(FCHS)with an internal angle of 6°,a radius of 3 m,and an inner height of0.3 m,resulting in an effective volume of~142 L.Moreover,the FCHS is equipped with an integrated"thermal-pressure-acoustic"sensing system,enabling in-situ monitoring of temperature,pressure,and P-wave velocity evolution during hydrate formation and dissociation process.The experimental results indicate that a pressure gradient successfully established from the reservoir center toward its boundaries during depressurization stage,and pressure propagation is relatively slow,resulting in a radial pressure difference of 3-4 MPa within a 3 m range.Once the system reaches pressure equilibrium,the pressure difference decreases to 0.3-0.4 MPa.The depressurization at the wellbore promotes hydrate dissociation in the near-well region,resulting in the radial temperature difference reaches~1.5℃ along the radial direction.The acoustic data reveals that a radial gradient in hydrate saturation gradually forms from the center to the boundary during depressurization-induced gas production.The evolutions of spatio-temporal multi-fields obtained in the FCHS are consist with that of field production.The FCHS proves to be a cutting-edge platform for experimental simulation of NGH exploitation and carbon sequestration processes.展开更多
基金support received from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(22127812,22578482,22278433)the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2021YFC2800902)。
文摘Large-scale physical simulation is essential for advancing our understanding of natural gas hydrates exploitation mechanism.However,cylinder-shaped simulators often face challenges in balancing large volume,controllability,and comprehensive monitoring.In this study,we developed a fan columnshaped hydrate simulator(FCHS)with an internal angle of 6°,a radius of 3 m,and an inner height of0.3 m,resulting in an effective volume of~142 L.Moreover,the FCHS is equipped with an integrated"thermal-pressure-acoustic"sensing system,enabling in-situ monitoring of temperature,pressure,and P-wave velocity evolution during hydrate formation and dissociation process.The experimental results indicate that a pressure gradient successfully established from the reservoir center toward its boundaries during depressurization stage,and pressure propagation is relatively slow,resulting in a radial pressure difference of 3-4 MPa within a 3 m range.Once the system reaches pressure equilibrium,the pressure difference decreases to 0.3-0.4 MPa.The depressurization at the wellbore promotes hydrate dissociation in the near-well region,resulting in the radial temperature difference reaches~1.5℃ along the radial direction.The acoustic data reveals that a radial gradient in hydrate saturation gradually forms from the center to the boundary during depressurization-induced gas production.The evolutions of spatio-temporal multi-fields obtained in the FCHS are consist with that of field production.The FCHS proves to be a cutting-edge platform for experimental simulation of NGH exploitation and carbon sequestration processes.
