OS6C-5：STUDY ON FORCES OF HYDRATE AGGLOMERATES AND CRITICAL AGGLOMERATION SIZE

Wuchang WANG，Yuxing LI, Haihong LIU, Pengfei ZHAO
College of Pipeline and Civil Engineering，China University of Petroleum(East China), CHINA,
   
    The force acting on hydrate particles is the critical factor to hydrate slurry stability which serves as fundamental basis for slurry flow assurance. This article provides an comprehensive force analysis of hydrate agglomerate of water-in-oil system including vander waals force, capillary bridge force, solid bridge force, electrostatic force, collision force, shear force, gravity force, etc. The conclusion is that the main agglomeration force is capillary liquid bridge force and the main separation force is shear force. An improvement for hydrate critical agglomeration size calculation model was then suggested and verified based on force analysis and force balance model, the results have shown that the agglomeration force of computation model can be simplified as capillary liquid bridge force and this model may provide technical support for hydrate slurry stabilized flow, thus promotes the practicability of hydrate slurry technique in engineering applications.