Hydrate is a Nonwetting Phase in Porous Media
Zachary Murphy, David A. DiCarlo, P. B. Flemings, Hugh Daigle
Abstract
Abstract In porous media containing gas hydrate, the hydrate morphology impacts the flow behavior of the fluid phases. We hypothesize that hydrate emplaces itself as a nonwetting phase and use this idea to describe relative permeability of water in a hydrate/water system. We perform steady‐state relative permeability measurements in hydrate‐bearing samples with a range of hydrate saturation. We measure and compare water relative permeability in the presence of gas and in the presence of hydrate and find that the water relative permeability is the same in both cases. This suggests that (1) relative permeability for hydrate systems can be obtained without performing difficult experiments on hydrate bearing sediments, (2) flow properties are porous‐media dependent, and (3) models that assume a fixed pore or tube geometry are inadequate.