0000000000147301
AUTHOR
Stephan A Klapp
Natural gas hydrate investigations by synchrotron radiation X-ray cryo-tomographic microscopy (SRXCTM)
[1] We report the 3D microstructure analyses of natural gas hydrates sampled from Gulf of Mexico. The samples were characterized by synchrotron radiation X-ray cryo-tomographic microscopy (SRXCTM) using the ‘TOMCAT’ beam line at the Swiss Light Source (SLS). The SRXCTM demonstrates its applicability to unlock some microscopic features of the marine hydrates, in particular of crystallite size and grain boundary network. The gas hydrate domains are surrounded by a network of pores of typically a few micrometers, which are largely due to decomposition. Out of the SRXCTM data, the porosity, total volume of the voids, the void surface area and number of the total gas-filled voids have been calcu…
Real-time 3D imaging of Haines jumps in porous media flow.
Newly developed high-speed, synchrotron-based X-ray computed microtomography enabled us to directly image pore-scale displacement events in porous rock in real time. Common approaches to modeling macroscopic fluid behavior are phenomenological, have many shortcomings, and lack consistent links to elementary pore-scale displacement processes, such as Haines jumps and snap-off. Unlike the common singular pore jump paradigm based on observations of restricted artificial capillaries, we found that Haines jumps typically cascade through 10–20 geometrically defined pores per event, accounting for 64% of the energy dissipation. Real-time imaging provided a more detailed fundamental understanding o…