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Enhanced double-mechanism creep laws for salt rocks

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Abstract

The double-mechanism creep law (DM model) is an empirical creep constitutive model widely employed in Brazilian salt rock mechanics. This model often presents good performance in steady-state creep prediction. However, transient creep is not accounted for, and whenever early creep estimates are important, the contribution of this phase might be meaningful. This work adds value by presenting two alternatives to account for transient creep in the DM model. The first alternative couples the transient function from Sandia’s multi-mechanism deformation model to the DM model steady-state creep rate (EDMT model). The second alternative couples the DM model response to Norton’s power law when the strain rate given by the latter remains lower than the one from the former (EDMP model). These models can be implemented in numerical simulators at small code extensions of the DM model implementations. Applications from previous works by the authors are revisited to validate the formulations based on experimental data. EDMT and EDMP models differ in the formulation of transient creep and, consequently, in the time of transition between the transient and the steady-state phases. Both methods were successful in treating transient creep and in simulating experimental results.

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Fig. 1

Off-scale graphs adapted by Firme [12] based on [8, 10, 11, 18]

Fig. 2

Experimental data from Costa et al. [8] adapted by the authors

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Experimental data from [8, 22]

Fig. 5

Experimental data from [8, 22]

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Fig. 7

Field data from D’Ellia [9]

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Fig. 9

Field data from Medeiros [17] adapted by the authors

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tecgraf Institute—Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Pedro A. L. P. Firme, Nuno B. Brandao & Deane Roehl

  2. Civil Engineering Department, PUC-Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Pedro A. L. P. Firme, Nuno B. Brandao, Deane Roehl & Celso Romanel

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  1. Pedro A. L. P. Firme
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  2. Nuno B. Brandao
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  4. Celso Romanel
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Correspondence to Pedro A. L. P. Firme.

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Firme, P.A.L.P., Brandao, N.B., Roehl, D. et al. Enhanced double-mechanism creep laws for salt rocks. Acta Geotech. 13, 1329–1340 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-018-0689-7

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