Abstract

Underground man-made salt caverns are a proven technology for energy storage, and their usage is expected to increase in the coming years, following the current efforts towards energy transition. Upscaling salt caverns (e.g., systems of caverns) also raises concerns about safety and cavern integrity, which requires a careful lifetime assessment of their mechanical stability. In this context, this presentation examines the mechanical behavior and failure mechanisms of salt rocks, as well as methods for identifying situations that could compromise cavern integrity. The importance of a multiscale approach, spanning from laboratory experiments to field-scale simulations, is also discussed. Without diving into the mathematical details, a physical intuition is provided on how to compose a constitutive model to capture the different deformation mechanisms in salt rocks. Finally, the impact of different constitutive model choices and calibrations is analyzed in the light of numerical simulations.