Determination of the Thermal Conductivity of Gas-Hydrate-Containing Porous Media using Discrete Geometric Analogues

This work deals with the problem of reconstructing the thermal conductivity coefficient of ice-gas- hydrate rocks. It is proposed to use the results of direct mathematical simulation of heat transfer processes in a heterogeneous porous medium with different phase composition, and the principles of energy conservation law. The results of high-resolution X-ray tomography are applied to construct a digital model of the gas-hydrate-containing medium using machine learning procedure and special thresholding methods. A discrete geometrical model of the digital model is constructed by methods based on adapted symplectic partitions. In contrast to existing solutions to the above problem, our approach is not based on the application of phenomenological reduced models. We apply continuum models of the medium under study, and the heat transfer process. This approach makes it possible to obtain physically relevant results for determining the thermal conductivity coefficient of a heterogeneous medium using its digital analogue. The influence of the phase composition and contrast of the thermal characteristics on the value of thermal conductivity coefficient of ice-gas-hydrate-containing samples is presented.