Mechanical property of artificial methane hydrate under triaxial compression

Methane production from hydrate reservoir may induce seabed slide and deformation of the hydrate-bearing strata. The research on mechanical properties of methane hydrate is considered to be important for developing an efficient methane exploitation technology. In this paper, a triaxial test system containing a pressure crystal device was developed with the conditions to stabilize the hydrate. A series of triaxial shear tests were carried out on artificial methane hydrate specimen. In addition, mechanical characteristics of methane hydrate were studied with the strain rates of 0.1 and 1.0 mm/min, respectively, under the conditions of different temperatures (T = −5, −10, and −20 °C) and confining pressures (P = 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MPa). The preliminary results show that when the confining pressure was less than 10 MPa, the increase of confining pressure leaded to the enhancement of shear strength. Furthermore, the decreasing temperature and the increasing strain rate both caused the increase in shear strength.