The determination of minimum and maximum gas pressures for stability of storage caverns using numerical modeling

Due to population growth in recent years and the growth of energy consumption at the same time, one of the most important concerns of today s society is supply the basic needs for the population. The excessive consumption of gas in cold months has faced many of those problems involved in the production and distribution of energy. To solve the problems, mankind has gone towards the use of methods that are associated with less cost and time to obtain the best results in recent years. In this study, a method for energy storage in salt caverns as one of the underground storage ways has been investigated. The gas pressure is important for the stability of a salt cavern, because when the pressure limit is exceeded, the failure of the cavern and gas leak occur. If the permissible level is less, due to the creep behavior of the salt rock, the cavern volume is reduced. Then, the total capacity of the cavern is reduced and also, instability of the cavern is increased. For this reason, in this study, the creep behavior of salt rocks has been examined using the numerical modeling approach, and the reduction of the volume the cavern within a year has been calculated, and also, the minimum and maximum gas pressures inside the cavern have been determined with the help of this method.

Keywords:

Salt caverns , Creep , Numerical modeling , Gas pressure