Stability and integrity of salt caverns under consideration of hydro-mechanical loading

The dilatancy criterion requires that no fracture-caused volume increase εVOL does occur. The effective tensile stress criterion requires that the minimum principal stress σMIN is higher than the acting fluid pressure pFL. The effective tensile stress criterion is more relevant for the assessment of cavern stability than the simple tensile stress criterion because it is more suitable to describe the occurring effects and more likely to be violated.