Abstract
Damage and self-healing characteristics of rock salt are key factors for the evaluation of underground salt cavern safety. During the construction of a salt cavern, characteristics of the surrounding rock (formation temperature, pressure and brine saturation) can affect the self-healing of rock salt. To study the recovery effect, we carried out a study through uniaxial compression tests. The rock salt samples were divided into group S and group X: samples in group X were annealed after initial damage (damage point: 15 Mpa, 20 Mpa, 25 Mpa and peak stress) while the samples in group S were not. For group S, a peak damage was applied immediately after the initial damage. Group X samples, after initial damage, were placed in the repair environment for 7 days. The repair environment mentioned above is set as saturated brine with a temperature of 50 °C and pressure of 12 MPa. It turned out that (1) the rock salt has almost no compaction phase during uniaxial compression. Damaged rock salt experienced an apparent compaction stage after being repaired; (2) for all the samples in the two groups, the yield stress and elastic modulus increase after the initial damage, which is regarded as the hardening of rock salt; (3) the plasticity of damaged rock salt can significantly recover after having been repaired. Thus, the environment during the construction of a salt cavern has a good effect on the self-healing of rock salt, and this characteristic of rock salt is beneficial to the safe operation of a cavern for storage purposes.
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Abbreviations
- \({\varepsilon _1}\), \({\varepsilon _2}\) :
-
Axial strain and radial strain
- \({\varepsilon _{\text{v}}}\), \({\varepsilon _{{\text{vc}}}}{\varepsilon _{{\text{ve}}}}\) :
-
Volume strain, crack volume strain and elastic volume strain
- \({\sigma _1}\) :
-
Axial stress
- \(E\) :
-
Elastic modulus
- \(\mu\) :
-
Poisson’s ratio
- \({\sigma _{{\text{ci}}}}\) :
-
Crack initiation stress
- \({\sigma _{{\text{cd}}}}\) :
-
Dilatancy stress
- \({\sigma _{\text{S}}}\) :
-
Yield stress
- \({\sigma _{\text{d}}}\) :
-
Damage point
- \({\sigma _{\text{p}}}\) :
-
Stress corresponding to the peak point (peak stress)
- \({\varepsilon _{\text{p}}}\) :
-
Strain corresponding to the peak point (peak strain)
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Acknowledgements
The authors are sincerely grateful to professor Maurice B. Dusseault and his wife Betty Anne Dusseault (Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo), Prof. J. J. K. Daemen (University of Nevada, USA), for their thoughtful review and English help of this paper. The authors are thankful for the financial support from the China Scholarship Council (no. 201704910741). The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 51774266, 51404241, 41602328), National Natural Science Foundation of China Innovative Research Team (Grant no. 51621006), and Natural Science Foundation for Innovation Group of Hubei Province, China (Grant no. 2016CFA014). Moreover, the authors wish to thank the reviewers for constructive comments and suggestions that have helped us improve our manuscript.
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The paper was written by HY under the guidance of CY. The experiment scheme, data analysis and pre-literature research were carried out by HM and XS. The experiments were carried out by HY under the help of XC, NZ and XG. WL put forward some useful suggestions on the experimental plans and deepened conclusions of the paper. In the process of revising the paper, the SEM test and the analysis of rock salt composition were finished by HY under the help of Dr. Liu.
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Yin, H., Yang, C., Ma, H. et al. Study on Damage and Repair Mechanical Characteristics of Rock Salt Under Uniaxial Compression. Rock Mech Rock Eng 52, 659–671 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-018-1604-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-018-1604-0