Study on Gas Hydrate Dissociation in Small Bodies of Hydrate-bearing Sediments under Water-heating Condition

High efficiency, economic, and safe exploitation of natural gas hydrate is an important researching topic. Mechanical-Thermal exploitation is a new presented potential efficient method for shallow marine hydrate exploitation, and contains the following procedures: In-situ mining of hydrate-bearing sediments, cutting the sediments into small bodies, mixing the sediments with surface injected seawater, transporting the multiphase fluid with hydrate dissociation in the exploitation well, and backfilling the sediments, etc. The physical processes of small bodies of hydrate-bearing sediments and water flow accompanying hydrate dissociation are described in the main controlling parameters. Then some trial observational tests are conducted to obtain information on the dissociation process of gas hydrate in small bodies under waterheating condition.