A Chemo-Thermo-Mechanically Coupled Analysis of Ground Deformation Induced by Methane Hydrate Dissociation

In the present paper, we have numerically analyzed the dissociation process of seabed ground and predicted the deformation of hydrate-bearing sediments. The simulation is conducted using the chemo-thermo-mechanically coupled model that takes into account the phase changes between hydrates and fluids during dissociation, the deformation behavior of the solid skeleton, and heat transfer simultaneously (Kimoto et al. 2007a). In addition, the dependency of the permeability coefficients for water and gas on hydrate saturation is introduced in the present analysis. From the analytical results, it has been found that ground deformation is induced by the dissipation and generation of water and gas and by a reduction of soil strength during the dissociation process.