Contactless probing of polycrystalline methane hydrate at pore scale suggests weaker tensile properties than thought

Dyhia Atig, Daniel Broseta, Jean-Michel Pereira and Ross Brown ()
Additional contact information
Dyhia Atig: Laboratoire des fluides complexes et de leurs réservoirs
Daniel Broseta: Laboratoire des fluides complexes et de leurs réservoirs
Jean-Michel Pereira: Ecole des Ponts, Univ Gustave Eiffel
Ross Brown: Institut des sciences analytiques et de physico-chimie pour l’environnement et les matériaux

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Methane hydrate is widely distributed in the pores of marine sediments or permafrost soils, contributing to their mechanical properties. Yet the tensile properties of the hydrate at pore scales remain almost completely unknown, notably the influence of grain size on its own cohesion. Here we grow thin films of the hydrate in glass capillaries. Using a novel, contactless thermal method to apply stress, and video microscopy to observe the strain, we estimate the tensile elastic modulus and strength. Ductile and brittle characteristics are both found, dependent on sample thickness and texture, which are controlled by supercooling with respect to the dissociation temperature and by ageing. Relating the data to the literature suggests the cohesive strength of methane hydrate was so far significantly overestimated.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16628-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-16628-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16628-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().