ABSTRACT
However, investigations of the mechanical properties of bedded salt rock with interlayers remain sparse. Li et al. (2006 & 2007) conducted experiments and found that the presence of mudstone interlayers dramatically affects the deformation and failure characteristics of laboratory specimens; they observed that the mudstone fractured prior to the salt rock even though its uniaxial peak strength was higher than that of the latter (referring to Fig. 1). Their experiments were performed with hard interlayers and highlight the effect of viscoplastic strain relaxing high shear stresses in the salt but not in the interlayers, leading to early internal tensile fracturing of the hard interlayers.
