Quasi-Static Strength and Creep Characteristics of 100-mm-Diameter Specimens of Salt from Avery Island, Louisiana

摘要

This report primarily describes triaxial compression creep experiments performed on dome salt from Avery Island, Louisiana. The ranges of axial stress difference delta sigma, confining pressure sigma2, and temperature T studied covered those expected in a nuclear waste repository: 5.4 less than or equal to delta sigma less than or equal to 20.7 MPa, 0.7 less than or equal to sigma2 less than or equal to 20.7 MPa, 24 exp 0 C less than or equal to T less than or equal to 200 exp 0 C. All specimens exhibited transient creep, and the strain data were fitted to a constitutive law of the form epsilon = At/sup m/ delta sigma/sup n/T/sub p/. The duration of some creep experiments was long enough for the specimens to reach steady-state deformation. An activation energy for the rate-controlling deformation mechanism was calculated using data from these experiments. A few quasi-static strength tests were performed at 24 exp 0 C. A common load rate of 0.002 MPa/sec was used for each experiment while confining pressures ranged from 0 to 20.7 MPa. The data presented in this report obtained using 100-mm-diam specimens. The results were compared to previous work, which used 50-mm-diam specimens. (ERA citation 08:039473)