International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH) (6th : 2008)

A MODELING APPROACH TO HYDRATE WALL GROWTH AND SLOUGHING IN A WATER SATURATED GAS PIPELINE Nicholas, Joseph W.; Inman, Ryan R.; Steele, John P.H.; Koh, Carolyn A.; Sloan, E. Dendy

Abstract

A hydrate plugging and formation model for oil and gas pipelines is becoming increasingly important as producers continue to push flow assurance boundaries. A key input for any hydrate plugging model is the rate of hydrate growth and the volume fraction of hydrate at a given time. This work investigates a fundamental approach toward predicting hydrate growth and volume fraction in a water saturated gas pipeline. This works suggests that, in the absence of free water, hydrate volume fraction can be predicted using a wall growth and sloughing model. Wall growth can be predicted using a one-dimensional, moving boundary, heat and mass transfer model. It is hypothesized that hydrate sloughing can be predicted when a coincident frequency exists between hydrate natural frequency and flow induced vibrations over the hydrate surface.

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International