Leached salt cavern design using a fracture criterion for rock salt

Conference · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1984

OSTI ID:7149787

Preece, D S; Wawersik, W R

In 1975 Congress passed the Energy Conservation Act to establish a US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) with a capacity of 750 million barrels of crude oil. The most economic storage medium was determined to be salt caverns leached in salt domes in Louisiana and Texas. Salt caverns existed at several sites when the reserve was created. These were obtained by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and used to initiate SPR oil storage. In order to meet the storage capacity approved by Congress, new caverns also had to be leached. To support the resulting design effort, finite element computer programs have been used to determine the creep closure and structural stability of salt caverns. Using site specific material properties including creep models, elastic moduli and fracture data, the finite element analyses have been replaced earlier empirical approaches to cavern design. This report presents results of such finite element analyses to determine the best cavern roof shape and the minimum pillar to diameter ratio, P/D. These numerical predictions indicate that the current cavern design is safe. 12 references, 7 figures, 2 tables.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 7149787
• Report Number(s): SAND-83-2345C; CONF-840633-6; ON: DE84009457
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
024000* -- Petroleum-- Storage-- (-1989)
CAVITIES
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
CREEP
DESIGN
DISSOLUTION
FAILURES
FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
FRACTURES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
LEACHING
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
POISSON RATIO
RESERVES
RESOURCES
ROOFS
SALT CAVERNS
SALT DEPOSITS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
STABILITY
STORAGE
STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE
SUPPORT PILLARS
UNDERGROUND STORAGE
YOUNG MODULUS