BGES offers a full suite of geomechanical testing and analysis for salt cavern, potash, and other solution mining projects. Test programs are designed to evaluate major properties of the subsurface, including the permeability of the caprock and salt, Young’s modulus as well as compressive, tensile and shear strengths of the caprock and salt, and the salt’s unique creep behaviour. Available tests include:

Material characterization tests consisting of bulk density and porosity testing as well as CT scans for salt and caprock cores. For the caprocks, Atterberg limit index tests, which helps to determine liquid limit, plastic limit and plastic index, and hydrometer particle distribution analyses will also be performed.

At BGES, different forms of triaxial analyses are performed to determine a range physical properties for salt and caprock samples:

Constant Mean Stress Triaxial Compression (CMS):
Determines stress values at failure by increasing axial stress while decreasing confining stress so that the mean stress during the test remains constant

Constant Mean Stress Triaxial Compression with Permeability (CMSk):
Determines the effect of volume changes on the permeability of the salt sample during a compression test.

Multi-Stage Creep Test (MSCT):
Provides a good understanding of both the transient and steady-state creep behavior of the salt

Brazilian Indirect Tensile Strength (BITS) Test:
Measures the tensile strength of the salt

Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) Test:
Determines the lower end of the failure envelope (without confining stress)