Recovery and Healing of Damage in WIPP Salt

Creep damage in rock salt, which generally manifests in the form of microcracks, can be recovered or healed when subjected to sufficiently high pressures and temperatures. In this paper, the phenomena of damage recovery and healing in rock salt are treated using the continuum damage mechanics approach. A healing term is formulated and incorporated into an existing constitutive model for describing coupled creep, fracture, and healing in rock salt. The constitutive model is then evaluated against experimental data of rock salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site. Satisfactory results are obtained between model calculations and experimental measurements of axial, lateral, and volumetric strains, as well as acoustic wave velocity and attenuation recovered during damage healing. Furthermore, analyses of experimental data revealed that healing anisotropies exist in WIPP salt. Most, though not all, of the healing anisotropies can be modeled with an appropriate power-conjugate equivalent stress, kinetic equation, and evolution equation for damage healing based on a scalar damage variable. This work represents the first attempt to simulate healing of damaged intact WIPP salt; however, further evaluations and improvement of the model can be anticipated.