Publications Details
Constitutive modeling of salt behavior: State of the technology
The modern investigation of the thermochemical behavior of salt started in the mid-1930's and, for what appears to be a very narrow discipline, salt mechanics'' has acquired considerable technical depth and sophistication. The last three decades have been especially productive in constitutive model development and laboratory investigations of time-dependent creep behavior. This has been largely due to anticipated use of domal or bedded salt deposits as sites for radioactive waste repositories and to expanded need for hydrocarbon and feedstock storage caverns. Salt is an interesting material, in that it is metal like''; and, therefore, constitutive modeling can draw upon a large body of metal deformation information to arrive at appropriate models of behavior. Testing apparatus and methods have centered on either uniaxial or triaxial compression to obtain steady state and transient creep responses. Flow and fracture potentials have been defined. Validation attempts of the models against field data, although limited, have proved promising. 27 refs.