A. Ghasemloonia; S. D. Butt
Abstract
Underground caverns in rock salt deposits are the most secure disposal method and a type of gas-storing facility. Gas storage plays a vital role in ensuring that a strategic relationship is secured between an established energy infrastructure provider and a midstream energy company. The Fischells Brook ...
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Underground caverns in rock salt deposits are the most secure disposal method and a type of gas-storing facility. Gas storage plays a vital role in ensuring that a strategic relationship is secured between an established energy infrastructure provider and a midstream energy company. The Fischells Brook area is a pillow-shaped body of salts located in the St. George's Bay area of southwest Newfoundland, which has three layers of salt beds, and is capable of excavating caverns for the storage purposes. The development of cavern facilities requires the stability analysis through numerical models and experimental facilities. This work was motivated to examine the engineering feasibility of the salt cavern characteristics in this area, and to investigate its stability under creep behavior. An experimental test facility was developed to investigate the constitutive parameters governing the creep of rock salt, and the constitutive parameters were implemented into a developed finite element model to investigate the stability of the cavern over a 5-year period. Also a stress-based dilatancy failure envelope was developed to interpret the results of the numerical model, and to conduct sensitivity analyses for different design scenarios. The design recommendations developed in this study will be implemented as a key part of an engineering feasibility study for underground caverns in salt deposits in western Newfoundland.
S.M.A Hosseini; F Sereshki; M Shariati; S.M.E Jalali; F Crotogino
Abstract
Creep phenomenon in rock engineering plays a key role in development of underground spaces as they must be stable enough for a long period of time. Current research involved designing and manufacturing of a new creep testing machine. The equipment is capable to perform simultaneous light-duty creep tests ...
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Creep phenomenon in rock engineering plays a key role in development of underground spaces as they must be stable enough for a long period of time. Current research involved designing and manufacturing of a new creep testing machine. The equipment is capable to perform simultaneous light-duty creep tests on more than one cylindrical rock samples at a very low cost.To evaluate the equipment’s performance, a series of creep test was performed on salt rock samples and their axial and lateral deformations were measured by dial gauges. Measurements were taken under constant temperature, humidity and sustained loads. The results revealed that the creep rate in lateral direction was far greater than in the axial direction. Another important conclusion was that both axial and lateral creep curves follow the same pattern with an idealized salt rock creep curve. Also, experiments indicated that the steady state creep rate increases with increasing initial stress state. Also, initial stress state showed a great influence on salt primary creep response.
