Constitutive model for gas hydrate-bearing soils considering different types of hydrate morphology and prediction of strength-band

The present study proposes a new elasto-plastic constitutive model that considers different types of hydrates in pore spaces. Many triaxial compression tests on both methane hydrate-bearing soils and carbon dioxide hydrate-bearing soils have been carried out over the last few decades. It has been revealed that methane hydrate-bearing soils and carbon dioxide hydrate-bearing soils have different strength and dilatancy properties even though they have the same hydrate contents. The reason for this might be due to the different types of hydrate morphology. In this study, therefore, the effect of the hydrate morphology on the mechanical response of gas-hydrate-bearing sediments is investigated through a model analysis by taking into account the different hardening rules corresponding to each type of hydrate morphology. In order to evaluate the capability of the proposed model, it is applied to the results of past triaxial compression tests on both methane hydrate-containing and carbon dioxide hydrate-containing sand specimens. The model is found to successfully reproduce the different stress–strain relations and dilatancy behaviors, by only giving consideration to the different morphology distributions and not changing the fitting parameters. The model is then used to predict a possible range in which the maximum deviator stress can move for various hydrate morphology ratios; the range is defined as the strength-band. The predicted curve of the maximum deviator stress obtained by the constitutive model matches the empirical equations obtained from past experiments. It supports the fact that the hydrate morphology ratio changes with the total hydrate saturation. These findings will contribute to a better understanding of the relation between the microscopic structures and macro-mechanical behaviors of gas-hydrate-bearing sediments.