Mesoscopic Measurements of the Hydrate Phase

Laser scattering methods have been applied by the groups of Bishnoi and Sloan to measure changes in the hydrate particle size distribution during hydrate 

FIGURE 6.7 Schematic of the pressure vessel and needle probe system used to measure thermal conductivity. (Reproduced from Waite, W.F., deMartin, B.J., Kirby, S.H., Pinkston, J., Ruppel, C.D., Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, 2229 (2002). With permission from the American Geophysical Union.) 

CSM has coupled the FBRM with a second probe, the particle video microscope, PVM (Lasentec/Mettler Toledo), which consists of six illuminating near-infrared lasers (850 nm) that are transmitted into the sample. While the FBRM provides precise quantitative tracking of the chord lengths, the PVM probe provides qualitative images of the hydrate particle size and degree of agglomeration. The size range scale of hydrate particles that can be measured with the PVM probe is 10-300 i,m. 

A micromechanical force apparatus has been developed at CSM to measure directly the adhesive forces between hydrate particles or between a hydrate particle and a surface (Yang et al., 2004 Taylor et al 2007). Similar micromechanical force apparatus designs have been applied to measure adhesive forces between ice particles (Hosier, 1957 Hosier and Hallgren, 1961 Fan, 2003). This apparatus 

Fiber optic Beam splitter Laser beam 

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