A series of tri-axial shear tests were carried out to determine the stress and strain characteristics, as well as the volume deformation of methane hydrate-bearing sediments during gas hydrate dissociation. An innovative type of depressurization was adopted with a high-pressure and low-temperature tri-axial apparatus. Results show that: (1) decrease in pore pressure during the shear process may result in the failure of hydrate-bearing sediments, but they did not collapse completely due to high effective confining pressure; (2) depressurization leads to the contraction of volumetric strain and the ultimate deformation shows no difference compared to that prior depressurization; (3) high saturation hydrate-bearing sediments were more sensitive to depressurization, which could be due to the methane hydrate acting as a skeleton structure at some sites when the pore hydrates’ saturation is high.

The effects of sediments with different clay contents on the mechanical properties of hydrate deposits were studied using a high-pressure, low-temperature triaxial apparatus with in-situ synthesis, as well as the mechanical properties of self-developed hydrate sediments. Through multi-stage loading, triaxial compression tests were conducted by adding quartz sand with different clay contents as the sediment skeleton, and the stress–strain relationship of the shearing process and the strength of sediments with different clay contents were determined. Volumetric changes were also observed during shearing. The results show that the strength of hydrate sediments decreases with the increasing clay content of sediments; in the processes of depressurization and shearing, the hydrate samples exhibited obvious shear shrinkage, regardless of the sediment particle size.