Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
5022451 | Comptes Rendus Mécanique | 2017 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
An in-situ test performed in a brine-filled cavern proves that, when brine pressure decreases rapidly, the creep closure rate increases drastically. Conversely, a rapid pressure increase leads to “reverse” creep closure: cavern volume increases, even when, at cavern depth, fluid pressure is lower than geostatic pressure. It is tempting to explain these two phenomena by transient salt creep, a characteristic feature of salt rheological behavior commonly observed during laboratory creep tests. In fact, computations performed on an idealized cylindrical cavern excavated from a Norton-Hoff rock mass (a constitutive law that includes no transient component) prove that these two phenomena are, at least partly, of a structural nature: their origin is in the slow redistribution of stresses following any pressure change.
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Authors
Pierre Bérest, Mehdi Karimi-Jafari, Benoît Brouard,