3D geomechanical modeling of irregular salt caverns

Irregular salt caverns are common in salt cavern storages around the world, accounting for more than 60 % of the salt caverns built in China. Previously, when evaluating the safety of irregular salt caverns under specific operating conditions, the target salt caverns were generally treated as regular or axisymmetric shapes. The significant influence of their real shapes on their operational safety was ignored. In order to accurately evaluate the safety of irregular salt caverns and to eliminate the influence of the irregular salt caverns shape on the evaluation results, software for generating irregular salt caverns was compiled using the C++ language. Geomechanical models of four typical irregular salt caverns in Jintan Salt Mine were constructed. The deformations, strains, and stresses of the four models are successfully calculated, and the corresponding calculation results are obtained, which proves the applicability and rationality of the software. The research results of this paper provide a new method and idea to overcome the difficulty of modeling irregular salt caverns. • Developing a simulation software for generating irregular salt caverns. • Putting forward a new method for geological modeling of irregular salt caverns. • The difficult problem of geological modeling of irregular salt caverns is solved.