Study on tri-axial creep experiment and constitutive relation of different rock salt

To evaluate the effect of the long-term operation of a salt cavern in a given construction on rock deformation and its stability, tri-axial creep tests to the glauberite, anhydrite, and argillaceous rock salt are conducted, from which the creep curves as well as exponential functions of strain rate during the steady creep stage and creep constitutive equations of different rock salt in the experimental process derived are obtained. The study results show that: (i) Under the same deviatoric stress, the strain rate of argillaceous rock salt is lower than the glauberite and anhydrite, and the difference becomes larger with the increase of the deviatoric stress: (ii) The creep constitutive equations of different kinds of rock salt are in good agreement with the Burgers model, besides which the respective characteristics of these two creep models are compared. The change of creep parameters also illustrates the discrepancy of rock salt. The researching results can provide some references for long-term stability analysis of gas storage in salt caverns. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.