Creep of 50-mm Diameter Specimens of Dome Salt from Avery Island, Louisiana

摘要

This report describes triaxial compression creep experiments performed on domal salt from Avery Island, Louisiana. The ranges of axial stress difference delta sigma, confining pressure sigma2, and temperature T studies covered those expected in a nuclear waste repository: 6.9 less than or equal to delta sigma less than or equal to 31.0 MPa, 0 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 = kt/sup n/ delta sigma/sup m/T/sup p/. The duration of some experiments was long enough for the specimen to reach steady-state. An activation energy for the rate-controlling deformation mechanism was calculated using data from these experiments. Finally, creep of Avery Island and Jefferson Island domal salts were compared and found to be similar. (ERA citation 06:017552)