Energy Geotechnics – Wuttke, Bauer & Sánchez (Eds)

© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-03299-6

Geomechanical and numerical modeling of gas hydrate sediments

M. Sánchez & X. Gai

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

ABSTRACT: Gas hydrates sediments are generally found in sub-marine sediments and in permafrost regions.
They are recognized as a huge potential energy resource. Methane hydrate deposits can lead to large-scale
submarine slope failures, blowouts, platform foundation failures, and borehole instability. Hydrate formation,
dissociation and methane production from hydrate bearing sediments are coupled Thermo-Hydro-Chemical and
Mechanical (THCM) processes that involve, amongst other, exothermic formation and endothermic dissociation
of hydrate and ice phases, mixed fluid flow and large changes in fluid pressure. The behavior of Hydrate Bearing
Sediments (HBS) is very complex and the mechanical modeling poses great challenges. The presence of hydrates
has a huge impact on the mechanical behavior of soils, affecting stiffenss, strength and dilatancy.A comprehensive
THM formulation for HBS is briefly presented in this paper. Special attention is paid to the mechanical behavior
of HBS. The model performance was very satisfactory in all the cases studied. It managed to capture very well
the main features of HBS behavior and it also assisted to interpret the behavior of this type of sediment under
different loading and hydrate conditions.

1 INTRODUCTION and geomechanical properties of hydrate sediments.

1.1 Background
Hydrate bearing sediments (HBS) are natural soil
deposits that contain ice like methane hydrates in
its pore space. Methane hydrates are solid com-
pounds made of water molecules clustered around low
molecular weight methane molecules. The stability of
methane depends on pressure (P) and temperature (T)
conditions. Methane hydrates forms are common in
sub-permafrost layers and in deep marine sediments,
this is because of the necessary conditions of low
temperature and high pressure required for hydrate
stability (e.g. Collett 2002). If changes in tempera-
ture and/or pressure are such that the methane hydrate
shift from the ‘P-T’ stability zone, it will dissociate
producing methane and water. Hydrate dissociation
will induce in turn profound changes in the sediment
structure and physical properties. According to the
U.S. Geological Survey, the estimated global natural
gas hydrate reserves are in the range from 100,000 to
about 300,000,000 trillion cubic feet (Mahajan et al.
2007). Given the sheer magnitude of this resource,
sediments with (a relatively) high concentration of
methane hydrate in the pore space are considered to be
a significant energy resource for future exploitation.
However, hydrates dissociation is associated with
engineering problems, such as: blowouts; platform
foundation failures; pipeline related issues; large sub-
marine landslides; and borehole instability. Hydrate
dissociation is a complex phenomenon involv-
ing changes in fluid pressure, effective stresses,
Depressurization, thermal injection and chemical
stimulation are the three basic mechanisms that trigger
hydrate dissociation. Current methods accepted as fea-
sible for extracting methane gas from hydrate bearing
sediments are based on these three processes mainly.
A proper modelling of this challenging problem will
assist to study optimal methane production strategies
and also to prevent the multiple hazards associated
with uncontrolled hydrate dissociation and gas release
from hydrate sediments.
Considering the complex multiphysics phenom-
ena involved in gas hydrate formation/dissociation a
fully coupled Thermo-Hydro-Chemical and Mechani-
cal formulation is an indispensable component to con-
duct realistic engineering problems involving HBS.
The mechanical modeling of gas hydrate sediments
is particularly challenging. In this paper an elasto-
plastic model based on the strain partition concept
(Pinyol et al. 2007) and the HIerarchical Single Sur-
face (HISS) framework (e.g. Desai 1996) was adopted
in an effort to provide a more general and versatile
constitutive model for HBS. The model is very well
suited to simulate problems involving hydrate dissoci-
ation. The proposed framework was widely validated
against recently published experiments involving both,
synthetic and natural hydrate soils, as well as different
sediments conditions (i.e., different Sh , and differ-
ent hydrates morphologies) and confinements. A brief
description of the THM formulation adopted in this
work is presented in the next section. Code validation
are reported elsewhere (e.g. Sanchez et al. 2015). Then
the mechanical model is briefly presented.

19

Figure 1. a) HBS schematic representation; b) HBS phase
diagram.
2 COUPLED THCM FORMULATION
2.1 Basics
The THM phenomena that take place in hydrate-
bearing sediments include the main following
phenomena: i) heat transport through conduc-
tion, liquid and gas phase advection; ii) heat of
formation-dissociation; iii) water flux as liquid phase;
iv) methaneflux in gas phase and as dissolved
methane(diffusion in liquid phase); v) heat of ice
formation/thaw; vi) fluid transport of chemical
species; vii) mechanical behavior depending on effec-
tive stress and hydrate concentration/morphology.
Those phenomena have been implemented in the finite
element program CODE-BRIGHT (Olivella et al.
1996). Some components of the coupled formulation
are presented in the subsequent sections.
2.2 Phases and Species
The pores in the granular skeleton of HBS are filled
with gas, hydrate, water or ice (Fig. 1a). The three main
species mineral, water, and methane are found in five
phases: solid mineral particles, liquid, gas, hydrates
and ice as shown in the phase diagram in Figure 1b.
The liquid phase is made of water and dissolved gas.
The density of the liquid ρ depends on temperature T
[◦ K] and pressure P [MPa]. The asymptotic solution
for small volumetric changes is:
where, ρo = 0.9998 g/m3 is the mass density of water
at atmospheric pressure T is temperature in ◦ K and
B = 2000 MPa is the maximum bulk stiffness of
water (at 277◦ K), and βT  = 0.0002◦ K−1 is the thermal
expansion coefficient.
The mass density of the gas phase is pressure Pg
[MPa] and temperature T [◦ K] dependent and it can
be estimated using the ideal gas law modified for
methane gas.
20
where, the gas constant R = 8.314 J/(molo K) and
the molecular mass of methane Mm = 16.042 g/mol
(example: ρg = 86 g/m3 at T = 280◦ K and Pg =
10 MPa).
The hydrate phase is made of water and methane.
The mass fraction of water in hydrate α = mw /mh
depends on the hydration number ξ for methane
hydrates. The ice transformation may take place dur-
ing fast depressurization. The densities of the hydrate,
the ice and the mineral phases are assumed constant.
2.3 Main equations
The total volume is the sum of the partial volume of
each β-phase Vβ , where the subscript β is related to
the solid ‘s’, liquid ‘’, gas ‘g’, hydrate ‘h’ and ice
‘I ’ phases. Assuming that the solid mineral is a non-
reactive phase, the total porosity (φ) is defined as the
ratio of the volume of voids to the total volume
The following relationship can be written:
where S , Sg , Sh and Si are the liquid, gas, hydrate and
ice saturations, respectively.
The mathematical formulation is composed of three
main types of equations: i) balance equations (i.e.
mass balance of species, internal energy balance and
momentum balance equations); ii) constitutive equa-
tions; and iii) equilibrium restrictions. As an example
of the mass balance equations the mass balance of
water is presented below:
where ρh is the density of the hydrates, and qg is flux
of methane.
Constitutive equations and equilibrium restrictions
relate the main unknowns (i.e. u, Pl ; Pg , Ph T ) with
the dependent variables (i.e. stresses; Sl ; Sg ; Sh fluxes).
For example, the retention curve dictates the rela-
tionship between the interfacial tension sustained by
the difference in liquid and gas pressures. Because of
space limitations the full set of equations are not pre-
sented here, more details can be found elsewhere (e.g.
Sanchez et al. 2015, 2016).
3 MECHNICAL BEHAVIOR OF HBS
3.1 Overview
The presence of hydrates strongly affects key mechan-
ical properties of soils. The samples containing
hydrates exhibit, higher shear strength, more dila-
tion under shearing, and they also soften more after

Figure 2. Main types of hydrate morphology: a) cementa-
tion; b) pore filling; and c) supporting matrix.
yielding when compared against the free hydrate sam-
ples (Masui et al. 2008, Miyazaki et al. 2011).
Identical sediments but with different hydrate satura-
tions, generally shown an increases in HBS stiffness,
pre-consolidation pressure, and sediment strength with
the increase of Sh . A degradation of the tangent stiff-
ness of hydrate-bearing soils during shearing has also
been reported (e.g. Masui et al. 2005; Hyodo et al.
2013).
Hydrates morphology also impacts on HBS behav-
ior. Hydrates can be present in soils in three main
types of pore habits, namely (e.g. Waite et al. 2009):
a) cementation (Fig. 2a); b) pore-filling (Fig. 2b); and
c) supporting matrix (Fig. 2c).
In the cementation mode the hydrates act as a bond-
ing material at mainly on sediment grain boundaries
and grow freely into the pore space without bridging
two or more particles together. The hydrates present in
this morphology assists to the mechanical stability of
the granular skeleton contributing to the load-bearing
framework of the sediment.The presence of hydrates in
this case can strongly affects the sediment permeability
and water storage capacity.
The behavior of HBS upon dissociation is very com-
plex because their response not only depend on the
amount of hydrate, but also on the type of pore habit,
and the stress level at which hydrate dissociation is
induced. For example, when hydrate dissociation takes
place at a low deviatoric stress (i.e. lower than the
strength of the pure sediment), the tendency of the
sediment after dissociation is to harden. An opposite
behavior was observed when dissociation occurs at a
higher deviatoric stress. Significant volumetric com-
pression deformations are observed when hydrate dis-
sociation is induced under constant effective stresses
(Santamaria et al. 2015).
It was also suggested that hydrate bonding effects
can be damaged during shearing (Uchida et al. 2012).
The progressive stiffness degradation in tests involv-
ing HBS is generally very evident. Figure 3a illustrates
the phenomenon of hydrate damage during shear-
ing. Hydrate dissociation is also accompanied by
profound changes in the sediment structure. Figure
3b shows schematically the expected changes in the
soil structure that lead to the collapse compression
deformations observed during dissociation under nor-
mally consolidated conditions (as discussed later on,
Fig. 6b).
In summary, the mechanical response of HBS is
highly non-linear and complex, controlled by multiple
inelastic phenomena that depends on hydrate satura-
tion, sediment structure, and stress level. The main
21
Figure 3. a) Schematic representation of the hydrate
damaged during shearing; b) rearrangement of the HBS
structure upon dissociation.
components of the proposed geomechanical model is
briefly introduced below.
3.2 Constitutive model
The elasto-plastic framework contemplates the pres-
ence of two basics components: sediment skeleton
and hydrates. The strain-partition concept proposed
by Pinyol et al. (2007) was adapted for the case of
HBS. Through this concept it is possible to account for
the role of these two different structures on the global
response of HBS under different loading and hydrate
saturation conditions, particularly during hydrate dis-
sociation. Specific constitutive equations for these two
basic structural components can be proposed. For the
sediment skeleton, a model based on critical state soil
mechanics was adopted. The particular constitutive
equation adopted was based on a modification of the
HISS elasto-plastic model (Desai 1986). The proposed
framework also incorporates sub-loading and dilation
enhancement concepts. As for the hydrates, a damage
model that considers the material degradation due to
loading and dissociation was suggested. Only some
basics components of the model are introduced below,
a detailed description can be found elsewhere (e.g.
Sanchez et al., 2015, 2016, and Gai & Sanchez, 2016).
The total volumetric strain (εv ) accounting for
both, sediment skeleton and hydrate deformations (i.e.
subscript ss and h, respectively) can be calculated as:
where Ch is the volumetric concentration of methane
hydrate; which in turns is equal to the porosity times
the hydrate saturation (i.e., Ch = φSh ). The relation-
ships that link hydrates and soil skeleton strains are
proposed following an approach similar to Pinyol et al.
(2007):
where χ is the strain partition variable that evolves
during loading.
As for the hydrates, previous studies suggested
that hydrate effects can be damaged during shear-
ing (Uchida et al. 2012). It is assumed that loading
degradation occurs when the stress state arrives to
a predefined threshold value ‘r0 ’. When the stresses
are below a pre-established threshold, a linear elastic
response of the material is assumed via the following
relationships:
where σh corresponds to the stresses taken by the
hydrate and Dh0 is the methane hydrate elastic consti-
tutive matrix of the intact material. Loading damage
takes place when the changes in the stress state is such
that the secant elastic energy reaches r0 . In this case the
damage variable L (i.e. +∞ > L ≥ 0) increases and the
stiffness reduces. The damage evolution is determined
by means of the function below (Carol et al. 2001):

Figure 4. Yield surfaces considered in the model.

where r1 controls the damage rate. The evolution law
for the partition variable is defined by: Table 1. Soil parameters adopted in the modeling of HBS

Test Test Test Test

Properties Sh = 0 Sh = 24.2% Sh = 35.1% Sh = 53.1%

M 1.30 1.30 1.30 1.30

where χ0 is an initial reference value assumed for the λ .16 .16 .16 16
partition variable. κ .004 .004 0.004 0.004
As for the sediment skeleton, a critical state con- pc (MPa) 10. 10 10 10
stitutive model based on a modified HISS framework n 3 3 3 3
was adopted. The model incorporates sub-loading con- a 1 1 1 1
cepts, as well as hardening and dilation enhancement γ −1/9 −1/9 −1/9 −1/9
mechanisms associated with the presence of hydrates Ch 0 .096 .138 .213
in the sediments. The modified HISS model involves α − 32 32 32
β − 1.0 1.0 1.0
a single and continuous yield surface that can adopt
r1 − 4.1 4.1 4.1
different shapes depending on the selected parameters r0 − 1e–5 1e–5 1e–5
(Desai 1986). The HISS yield surface (F) is given by: η 42 42 42 42
χ0 − 1 1 1
Kh (MPa) − 9600 9600 9600
Gh (MPa) − 4300 4300 4300

where a and γ are model constants; n is the parameter

related to the transition from compressive to dilative
behavior; pss and qss are the mean effective and devi-
atoric stresses, respectively, both associated with the
sediment skeleton; M is the slope of critical line in the
qss −pss space; and pc is the effective pre-consolidation
pressure. The Modified Cam-Clay yield surface cor-
responds to a particular case of this model. The yield
function incorporating the strength enhancement (pd )
associated with the presence of methane hydrate can
be expressed as
Sub-loading concepts are incorporated in the formu-
lation to account for any irrecoverable strain that may
occur in HBS when stresses are inside the yield sur-
face, and also for having a smooth transition between
elastic and plastic states. The three yield surfaces con-
sidered in this model are presented schematically in
Figure 4.
The principle of virtual work was advocated to
obtain the final expressions relating the external effec-
tive stress σ with the total strain increment. (Sanchez
et al., 2015, 2016).
3.3 Model applications
The tests reported by Hyodo et al. (2013) were selected
to study the effect of hydrate saturation on the behav-
ior of HBS. A series of triaxial compression tests
on synthetic methane hydrate soils were conducted
at different (constant) hydrate saturations, namely:
Sh = 0; Sh = 24.2%; Sh = 35.1%; and Sh = 53.1%. All
the samples were prepared at a similar porosity (i.e.
φ ∼ 40%). The effective confining pressure for all
the tests was 5 MPa. The samples where isotropi-
cally consolidated first and then subjected to shear-
ing. The model parameters were determined using
back-analysis based on two tests, the one involv-
ing sediments without hydrates (i.e., Sh = 0) and the
test related to the highest hydrate saturation (i.e.,
Sh = 53.1%). Then, this model (without modifying
the parameters adopted before) was used to pre-
dict the behavior of the samples with Sh = 24.2 and
Sh = 35.1%. Table 1 presents the parameters adopted
in the analyses.
Figures 5a & b show the comparisons between
experimental and model results for the different
hydrate saturations in terms of deviatoric stress and
volumetric strain versus axial strains. The compres-
sion behavior was dominant in all the samples, but
the one with Sh = 53.1% showed a dilatant response

22
Figure 5. Comparisons between model and experimental
results for synthetic samples of HBS prepared at different
Sh : a) stress-strain behavior; and b) volumetric responses
(experimental data from (Hyodo et al. 2013).
with a slight stress-softening behavior. The relatively
high confining pressure at which the tests were per-
formed (i.e. σc = 5 MPa) could be one reason for the
predominant hardening behavior with positive volu-
metric strains observed in these tests. In all the tests
the initial stiffness and shear strength increase with Sh .
The model was able to match very well the stress-strain
curves for all the experiments under study. Quite good
agreements were also observed in terms of volumetric
behavior (Fig. 4b).
The ability of the model to simulate tests involv-
ing different hydrate morphology was also checked
using the triaxial experiments conducted by Masui
et al. (2008), more details can be found elsewhere
(Gai & Sanchez, 2016; Sanchez et al., 2016).
The tests conducted by Santamarina et al. (2015)
were selected to study the effect of hydrate disso-
ciation under loading conditions. Two natural core
samples were extracted from the Nankai Trough using
Pressure Core Characterization Tools (Santamarina
et al. 2012) and tested under oedometric conditions.
Figure 6a shows the comparison between experimen-
tal and modeling results for the sample coded as
‘core 8P’ with Sh = 18%. Prior to hydrate dissocia-
tion the specimen was loaded up to a vertical stress
σv = 6 MPa and then unloaded back to σv = 3 MPa
to study the stress-volume response of HBS. Under
this over-consolidated conditions, hydrate dissocia-
tion was induced. Once the hydrate fully dissociated,
the sample was subjected to loading-unloading cycles
with a maximum σv = 9 MPa. Figure 6b presents the
results related to specimen coded as ‘core 10P’, initial
Sh = 74%. This sample was loaded until σv = 3 MPa,
at this normally-consolidated conditions, the effec-
tive stress was hold constant and hydrate dissociation
was induced. After hydrate dissociation, the sample
was loaded up to σv = 9 MPa and then unloaded.
The model managed to capture very satisfactorily the
main trends observed in both tests. The yield stress
and unloading-reloading behavior are quite well mod-
eled in both specimens. It is worth to highlight the
model ability to reproduce the difference in volumetric
strains observed during dissociation at constant stress
in these two tests. In the case of core-8P, the collapse-
compression behavior is significantly less marked than
in core-10P, where the rearrangement of the HBS
23
Figure 6. Behavior during dissociation of natural HBS spec-
imens under oedometric conditions: a) core 8P; and b) core
10P, (experimental data from Santamarina et al. 2015).
structure is huge during dissociation. The main rea-
sons behind this different behavior can be related to:
i) hydrate saturation is much smaller in core-8P than
core-10P (i.e., Sh = 18% for core-8P, and Sh = 74%
for core-10P); ii) the vertical stress at which hydrates
are dissociated is lower and the dissociation took
place under over-consolidated conditions, therefore
the effect of confinement on the re-accommodation
of the sediments particles is less significant; and iii)
this sample was previously loaded up to a very high
effective vertical stress (i.e. σv = 6 MPa) that degraded
the bonding effect of the hydrate and induced impor-
tant changes in the sediment structure previous to
dissociation.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The interest for gas hydrates have increased in the
last few years. They represent huge opportunities in
terms of energy resource and they are also associ-
ated with some drawbacks because of the metastable
character of the HBS structure and its impact on sedi-
ment stability. A coupled THCM formulation for HBS
was briefly presented in this paper. A key compo-
nent of the proposed approach is the geomechanical
model. An advanced constitutive model for HBS was
also presented and applied to reproduce the mechani-
cal behavior observed in recent experiments involving
both synthetic and natural HBS specimens. The model
was able to reproduce quite satisfactorily the main fea-
tures of soil behavior observed in these tests as, for
example: the enhancement in stiffness and strength
induced by the presence of the hydrate, stiffenss
degradation during shearing, soil dilatancy, and the
volumetric soil collapse compression observed during
hydrate dissociation at constant stresses.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the finan-
cial support from NETL (National Energy Technol-
ogy Laboratory), DOE (Department of Energy, US)
through Award No.: DE-FE0013889. The authors
would also like to acknowledge the other researcher
involved in this project, amongst others: J. Carlos
Santamarina; Ajay Shastri and Mehdi Teymouri.
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