Indexed by:期刊论文

Date of Publication:2012-05-01

Journal:ENERGIES

Included Journals:SCIE、EI、Scopus

Volume:5

Issue:5

Page Number:1292-1308

ISSN No.:1996-1073

Key Words:methane hydrate; thermal method; dissociation; temperature difference; heat transfer

Abstract:The heat transfer analysis of hydrate-bearing sediment involved phase changes is one of the key requirements of gas hydrate exploitation techniques. In this paper, experiments were conducted to examine the heat transfer performance during hydrate formation and dissociation by a thermal method using a 5L volume reactor. This study simulated porous media by using glass beads of uniform size. Sixteen platinum resistance thermometers were placed in different position in the reactor to monitor the temperature differences of the hydrate in porous media. The influence of production temperature on the production time was also investigated. Experimental results show that there is a delay when hydrate decomposed in the radial direction and there are three stages in the dissociation period which is influenced by the rate of hydrate dissociation and the heat flow of the reactor. A significant temperature difference along the radial direction of the reactor was obtained when the hydrate dissociates and this phenomenon could be enhanced by raising the production temperature. In addition, hydrate dissociates homogeneously and the temperature difference is much smaller than the other conditions when the production temperature is around the 10 degrees C. With the increase of the production temperature, the maximum of Delta T-oi grows until the temperature reaches 40 degrees C. The period of Delta T-oi have a close relation with the total time of hydrate dissociation. Especially, the period of Delta T-oi with production temperature of 10 degrees C is twice as much as that at other temperatures. Under these experimental conditions, the heat is mainly transferred by conduction from the dissociated zone to the dissociating zone and the production temperature has little effect on the convection of the water in the porous media.