Influence of pressure solution and evaporate heterogeneity on the geo-mechanical behavior of salt caverns

Salt caverns provide large-scale storage volumes for green gases, especially green hydrogen. This makes them quite attractive and feasible for scaling up renewable energy development plans. Accurate characterization of the subsurface properties, specially the nonlinear time-dependent ones under varying gas pressures, plays a major role in safe operations. The present study is focused on studying the influence of pressure solution on the nonlinear deformation of salt caverns. Further a carnallite interlayer was incorporated to study its influence on the deformation in the presence of pressure solution. To this end, we present rigorous finite element computational analyses to model heterogeneous geo-mechanical domain surrounding salt caverns with nonlinear creep deformation, and material heterogeneity.