Failure transition of shear-to-dilation band of rock salt under triaxial stresses

Great potential of underground gas/energy storage in salt caverns seems to be a promising solution to support renewable energy. In the underground storage method, the operating cycle unfortunately may reach up to daily or even hourly, which generates complicated pressures on the salt cavern. Furthermore, the mechanical behavior of rock salt may change and present distinct failure characteristics under different stress states, which affects the performance of salt cavern during the time period of full service. To reproduce a similar loading condition on the cavern surrounding rock mass, the cyclic triaxial loading/unloading tests are performed on the rock salt to explore the mechanical transition behavior and failure characteristics under different confinement. Experimental results show that the rock salt samples present a diffused shear failure band with significant bulges at certain locations in low confining pressure conditions (e.g. 5 MPa, 10 MPa and 15 MPa), which is closely related to crystal misorientation and grain boundary sliding. Under the elevated confinement (e.g. 20 MPa, 30 MPa and 40 MPa), the dilation band dominates the failure mechanism, where the large-size halite crystals are crushed to be smaller size and new pores are developing. The failure transition mechanism revealed in the paper provides additional insight into the mechanical performance of salt caverns influenced by complicated stress states.