The Acoustic Properties of Sandy and Clayey Hydrate-Bearing Sediments

Xiao-Hui Wang, Qiang Xu, Ya-Nan He, Yun-Fei Wang, Yi-Fei Sun, Chang-Yu Sun and Guang-Jin Chen
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Xiao-Hui Wang: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Qiang Xu: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Ya-Nan He: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Yun-Fei Wang: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Yi-Fei Sun: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Chang-Yu Sun: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Guang-Jin Chen: State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 10, 1-11

Abstract: Natural gas hydrates samples are rare and difficult to store and transport at in situ pressure and temperature conditions, resulting in difficulty to characterize natural hydrate-bearing sediments and to identify hydrate accumulation position and saturation at the field scale. A new apparatus was designed to study the acoustic properties of seafloor recovered cores with and without hydrate. To protect the natural frames of recovered cores and control hydrate distribution, the addition of water into cores was performed by injecting water vapor. The results show that hydrate saturation and types of host sediments are the two most important factors that govern the elastic properties of hydrate-bearing sediments. When gas hydrate saturation adds approximately to 5–25%, the corresponding P-wave velocity ( V p ) increases from 1.94 to 3.93 km/s and S-wave velocity ( V s ) increases from 1.14 to 2.23 km/s for sandy specimens; V p and V s for clayey samples are 1.72–2.13 km/s and 1.10–1.32 km/s, respectively. The acoustic properties of sandy sediments can be significantly changed by the formation/dissociation of gas hydrate, while these only minorly change for clayey specimens.

Keywords: acoustic property; gas hydrates; sandy sediments; clayey sediments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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