Prof. D. N. Singh

SANYAM DANGAYACH

Ph. D.
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, India sanyamd@gmail.com

CHARACTERIZATION AND SIMULATION OF HEAT MIGRATION IN GAS HYDRATE BEARING SEDIMENTS

Gas hydrates are billed as the energy source of the future, and as such, marine sediments bearing gas hydrates are the focus of intense research around the globe. The first step in understanding the nature of gas hydrates and the characteristics of their natural host sediments is to (i) characterize the sediments by extracting them from their natural environments, and (ii) to synthesize gas hydrates in laboratory and gain an insight into the thermodynamic conditions that govern their stable existence. Further, since both, the formation as well as dissociation of gas hydrates is an energy intensive process, the study of heat migration in gas hydrate bearing sediments becomes inevitable. With this in view, this work explores the characteristics of natural gas hydrate bearing sediments from Indian Margins, the geochemical processes governing the stable existence of a natural marine gas hydrate accumulation, as well as, the thermodynamics and the energy and mass balance of synthesis and dissociation of gas hydrates in laboratory setting. Effort has also been focused towards understanding the heat flow mechanism in hydrate bearing sediments by studying the phenomenon of heat flow in a two-phase system under both heating and cooling conditions. The role of numerical simulation in conjunction with laboratory experiments in understanding the heat migration phenomenon in a two-phase soil system has been established, and a methodology has been developed to properly understand and model heat migration in simple laboratory setups.