LARS is an experimental simulation device in which anthropogenic induced processes as well as natural processes can be investigated under predefined pressure-temperature (p-t) conditions. Within LARS it is possible to analyse processes of gashydrate generation as well as different "production" methods systematically.

The simulator was developed together with the Section 4.2 during the first phase of the SUGAR-Project. In this first project phase the goal was the development of innovative production methods for hydrocarbons from hydrate bearing sediments. 

Schicks, J. M., Spangenberg, E., Giese, R., Steinhauer, B., Klump, J., & Luzi, M. (2011): New approaches for the production of hydrocarbons from hydrate bearing sediments. Energies, 4(1), 151-172.

Spangenberg, E., Priegnitz, M., Heeschen, K., & Schicks, J. M. (2014): Are Laboratory-Formed Hydrate-Bearing Systems Analogous to Those in Nature?. Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data, 60(2), 258-268.

In the second Phase of the SUGAR-Project 375 electrodes for electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) were integrated to monitor processes within the probe during the experiments (Priegnitz, M., Thaler, J., Spangenberg, E., Rücker, C., & Schicks, J. M. (2013). A cylindrical electrical resistivity tomography array for three-dimensional monitoring of hydrate formation and dissociation. Review of Scientific Instruments, 84(10), 104502).