Fracture mechanics of methane clathrate hydrates

Fundamental mechanics of gas hydrates is of importance to evaluating geomechanical and geotechnical properties of gas hydrate deposits, but it remains largely unexplored yet due to insufficient direct experimental techniques and high-quality of gas hydrate samples. Here, classic molecular dynamic (MD) simulations are used to study the fracture mechanics of three main methane clathrate hydrates of sI, sII and sH types. The results show that the...