A hypoplastic model for hydrate‐bearing sand considering hydrate saturation and grain breakage

Abstract

We present a hypoplastic model to capture the mechanical responses of hydrate‐bearing sands by incorporating hydrate saturation and grain breakage. In our model, a new degradation scalar is introduced to account for the effects of hydrate bonding evolution on strength. We also adopt the variable critical state line to assess the effects of hydrate saturation and relative breakage ratio at high confining pressure. This model is validated by modeling a series of laboratory tests.