An Integrated Experimental and Computational Platform to Explore Gas Hydrate Promotion, Inhibition, Rheology, and Mechanical Properties at McGill University: A Review

(1) Background: Gas hydrates are historically notable due to their prevalence and influence on operational difficulties in the oil and gas industry. Recently, new technologies involving the formation of gas hydrates to accomplish various applications have been proposed. This has created new motivation for the characterization of rheological and mechanical properties and the study of molecular phenomena in gas hydrates systems, particularly in the absence of oil and under pre-nucleation conditions. (2) Methodology: This work reviews advances in research on the promotion, inhibition, rheology, and mechanical properties of gas hydrates obtained through an integrated material synthesis-property characterization-multi-scale theoretical and computational platform at McGill University. (3) Discussion: This work highlights the findings from previous experimental work by our group and identifies some of their inherent physical limitations. The role of computational research methods in extending experimental results and observations in the context of mechanical properties of gas hydrates is presented. (4) Summary and Future perspective: Experimental limitations due to the length and time scales of physical phenomena associated with gas hydrates were identified, and future steps implementing the integrated experimental-computational platform to address the limitations presented here were outlined.

（1）背景：天然气水合物由于其在油气工业中的普遍存在以及对作业困难的影响而在历史上备受关注。近期，有人提出了涉及形成天然气水合物以实现各种应用的新技术。这为天然气水合物系统的流变学和力学性质的表征以及分子现象的研究创造了新的动力，特别是在无油以及成核前条件下。 （2）方法：这项工作综述了麦吉尔大学通过一个综合的材料合成 - 性质表征 - 多尺度理论和计算平台所获得的关于天然气水合物的促进、抑制、流变学以及力学性质的研究进展。 （3）讨论：这项工作强调了我们团队先前实验工作的发现，并指出了其中一些固有的物理局限性。阐述了计算研究方法在天然气水合物力学性质背景下对扩展实验结果和观察的作用。 （4）总结与未来展望：确定了由于与天然气水合物相关的物理现象的长度和时间尺度所导致的实验局限性，并概述了实施综合实验 - 计算平台以解决此处所提出的局限性的未来步骤。