Time-Scaling Creep in Salt Rocks for Underground Storage

Salt is an elastoviscoplastic material that exhibits time-dependent deformation (creep). Experimental measurements of salt creep behavior help predict underground gas repositories’ long-term geomechanical behavior. Previous time-scaling creep experiments have focused on the axial strain of unconsolidated sands. i.e., time-scaling creep effects under zero lateral strain conditions without describing the creep behavior of the radial strain. In addition, the time-scaling creep of the radial and axial strain has not been investigated in salts. A comparative testing procedure and analysis method was conducted on Spindletop salt plugs using triaxial tests for multistage triaxial tests (MST) and different holding time durations and stress regimes, resulting in time-dependent strain responses (creep tests). The MST showed evolving deformational mechanisms under the mapped yield surface based on the irrecoverable to recoverable strain ratio beginning with crack closure or conformance, plasticity, and ending at early crystal surface failure. Unlike unconsolidated sands, salts showed both time and strain amplitude scaling. The axial and radial strain data show scaling behavior under low and high levels of deviatoric stress separated by a transitional period. The salt showed only an axial creep response at low deviatoric stress distally from the yield surface (one-dimesional (1D) response or zero lateral strain), which indicates negative dilatant deformation or uniaxial compaction. In contrast, the salts showed equal strain amplitude scaling factors both axially and radially at high deviatoric stress proximal to the yield surface (two-dimensional (2D) response or unconstrained boundary condition), which suggests positive dilatant deformation. Microstructural images showed accumulated creep damage under high deviatoric stress associated with parallel planes of dislocation-intergranular slip, microcracking, and compaction-induced dilational strains. The period of scaling is interpreted as regions where a single mechanism is dominating. Strain amplitude scaling for both low and high deviatoric creep stress tests provides inputs for a constitutive model of creep response in understanding the magnitude of mechanical damage associated with time-independent stress-strain curves in salts for the structural integrity of salt caverns during cyclic fluid injection and depletion.