ABSTRACT
Natural gas storage plays a vital role in maintaining the reliability of supply needed to meet the demands of consumers. Storage in rock salt caverns is one of the three underground storage methods for natural gas. In this study, mechanical behavior of salt storage cavern was numerically considered in a time dependent model using ABAQUS finite element software. A viscoplastic model was developed for simulation of a salt caver located in Nasrabad, Kashan, Iran and the stability of the cavern was evaluated using the strain rate criterion. Effect of maximum and minimum gas injection pressure, was investigated in the numerical simulation and found that the difference between the maximum and minimum gas pressure has a significant influence on the induced strain rate and stability of the cavern. Finally, a sensitivity analysis on the elastic and plastic parameters of the developed model was done and showed that the effect of elastic modulus on the induced strain rate is more than plastic parameters.
