TABLE OF CONTENTS YONG-HOON CHO 1 *, HEE-SUK LEE 1 , SEUNG-CHOL LEE 1 , TAEK-GON KIM 1 , JIN-MOO LEE, HO-YEONG KIM 1 , EUI-SEOB PARK 2 and SO-KEUL CHUNG 2
1 SK Engineering & Construction, Seoul, Korea
2 Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon, Korea
The concept of underground LNG storage in lined rock cavern has been developed and tested for several years. According to the pilot scale study from 2003, heat propagation in rock due to cryogenic storage could be well predicted without difficulty. General thermo-mechanical effect on rock near cavern also showed favorable behavior in terms of cavern stability. However, the full scale thermo-mechanical response of rock mass including fractures under cryogenic condition will be quite complex according to fracture characteristics. The movement and the opening of fractures can be expected to significantly affect rock movement and cavern stability.
In this study, a series of thermo-mechancal analysis were performed to understand the behavior of full scale LNG storage cavern, rock mass around the cavern and rock fractures to assure cavern stability during long-term storage of LNG in the cavern. Rigorous models were prepared with UDEC ver. 4.0 and the effect of explicit excavation and lining construction was simulated together with 30 years of storage period. Calculations were carried out with different condition in fracture distribution pattern and orientation etc.
General results show that rock displacements near cavern in most directions except the roof were directed toward...
