MECHANICAL-BEHAVIOR OF ROCK SALT - PHENOMENOLOGY AND MICROMECHANISMS

The mechanical behaviour of rock salt is very complex over the ranges of stress and temperature usually encountered in geoengineering. During the past decade substantial progress has been made in measuring and understanding this behaviour, primarily because of the studies that support proposed disposal of nuclear wastes in salt formations. Safe nuclear waste disposal in salt requires a fundamental understanding of its mechanical behaviour to predict performance of nuclear waste repositories for times much longer than those usually encountered in conventional geoengineering practice. This understanding of the mechanical behaviour relies on accurate measurements of the macroscopic phenomenology and interpretation of the role of micromechanisms in producing the observed phenomena.