Statistical evaluation of five failure criteria for intact salt rock

Five multiparameter empirical criteria were exclusively evaluated by comparing them with the strength data covering various stress conditions to find out which failure criterion best fits the test data and describes the mechanical behavior of the salt rock sequence (halite,bedded composite specimens and anhydrite interlayers).Full-scale comparison of all criteria for the three rock types was conducted based on five standard statistics calculated from least squares curve-fitting,which measures both the goodness of fitting and the quality of future prediction.The results indicate that all five nonlinear criteria with a basic power form are efficient in predicting the strength trend in the low tension area as well as in the high compression area of the soft rocks.The parameters obtained for the bedded rock salt are somewhat in the ones for the "pure" rocks and are even closer to those obtained for the halite.The generalized Hoek-Brown criterion is proven to perform best to two rock strength data followed by one for the Bieniawski empirical criterion,thus is the best candidate for the analysis of the salt rock.The Sheorey empirical criterion consistently achieves an intermediate performance for all the three rocks.It seems that the superiority of the poly-axial criteria (the Mogi 1967 criterion and the N-type criterion) over the former three triaxial criteria no longer exists when applied to the conventional triaxial strength data.Besides,the method of tension cut-off was proposed to solve the ambiguity problem of the two poly-axial criteria in the tension field in the plane of the major (σ1) andminor principal stress (σ3).

Gas leakage mechanism in bedded salt rock storage cavern considering damaged interface

During the long-time operation of salt rock storage cavern,between its formations,damaged interfaces induced by discontinuous creep deformations between adjacent layers will possibly lead to serious gas leakage.In this paper,damaged interfaces are considered as main potential leakage path:firstly in meso-level,gas flow rule along the interface is analyzed and the calculation of equivalent permeability is discussed.Then based on porous media seepage theory,gas leakage simulation model including salt rock,cavity interlayers and interface is built.With this strategy,it is possible to overcome the disadvantage of simulation burden with porous-fractured double medium.It also can provide the details of gas flowing along the damaged zones.Finally this proposal is applied to the salt cavern in Qianjian mines(East China).Under different operation pressures,gas distributions around two adjacent cavities are simulated;the evolvement of gas in the interlayers and salt rock is compared.From the results it is demonstrated that the domain of creep damage area has great influence on leakage range.And also the leakage in the interface will accelerate the development of leakage in salt rock.It is concluded that compared with observations,this new strategy provides closer answers.The simulation result proves its validity for the design and reasonable control of operating pressure and tightness evaluation of group bedded salt rock storage caverns.