• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.38 no.7 s.156
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• pp.537-544
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• 2005

For the proper management of high pressurized gas storage caverns, analysis of groundwater flow field and inflow quantity according to the groundwater head, gas storage pressure and water curtain head should be performed. The finite element method has been widely used for the groundwater flow analysis surrounding underground storage cavern because it can reflect the exact shape of cavern. But the various simulations according to the change of design factors such as the width of water curtain, shape of cavern etc. are not easy when elements were set up. To overcome these limitations, two dimensional groundwater flow model is established based on the boundary element method which compute the unknown variable by using only the boundary shape and condition. For the exact computation of drainage rate into cavern, the model test is performed by using the exact solution and pre-developed finite element model. The test result shows that the model could be used as an alternative to finite element model when various flow simulations are needed to determine the optimizing cavern shape and arrangement of water curtain holes and so forth.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.33-38
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• 1982

A successful operation of underground oil storage cavern depends on water-tightness around cavern by groundwater. If water-tightness is not secured, gas bubbles would leak out and oil would migrate to an adjacent empty cavern. In this research an electrical analogy method was employed to study the influence of shape of cavern on gas leakage and the required natural groundwater level, relative oil level in two neighboring caverns and cavern spacing to prevent oil migration. The results show that gas leakage is prevented from a cavern with a ceiling of large curvature. The required values of factors to curtail the migration of oil are given on a graph.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.35-51
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• 2002

This study aims to establish the methodology for design of an optimum water curtain system of the unlined underground oil storage cavern satisfying the requirements of hydrodynamic performance in a volcanic terrain of the south coastal area. For the optimum water curtain system in the storage facility, the general characteristics of groundwater flow system in the site are quantitatively described, i.e. distribution of hydraulic gradients, groundwater inflow rate into the storage caverns, and hydrogeologic influence area of the cavern. In this study, numerical models such as MODFLOW, FracMan/MAFIC and CONNECTFLOW are used for calculating the hydrogeological stability parameters. The design of a horizontal water curtain system requires considering the distance between water curtain and storage cavern, spacing of the water curtain boreholes, and injection pressure. From the numerical simulations at different scales, the optimum water curtain systems satisfying the containment criteria are obtained. The inflow rates into storage caverns estimated by a continuum model ranged from about 120 m$^3$/day during the operation stage to 130~140m$^3$/day during the construction stage, whereas the inflow rates by a fracture network model are 80~175m$^3$/day. The excavation works in the site will generate the excessive decline of groundwater level in a main fracture zone adjacent to the cavern. Therefore, the vertical water curtain system is necessary for sustaining the safe groundwater level in the fracture zone.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.344-354
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• 2000

The concrete plug in an underground cavern prevents the stored product (oil, gas, etc) from leaking and the excessive inflow of underground water, so it plays an important role in construction and operation of the storage cavern. Additionally, it should maintain its stability under every possible loading condition. Once the plug is constructed, the cavern is isolated from the external access. Therefore, mechanical and hydraulic consideration should be made in construction to fulfill its function. Therefore, in this study, numerical analyses were conducted to study the optimal shape and thickness of the plug with respect to the various conditions of installation depth, the shape of the plug, in-situ stress ratio (K), the condition of rock-plug interface, and the effect of Excavation Damaged Zone (EDZ). This paper also presents the effect of slot depth on the hydraulic behavior of the plug. These analyses were carried out by using the 2-dimensional finite difference code, rm FLAC, and the 3D code, rm FLAC$\^$3D/.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.188-195
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• 2012

Using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, FLUENT, the present study investigated the thermal stratification behavior of Lyckebo storage in Sweden, which is the very first large-scale rock cavern for underground thermal energy storage. Heat transfer analysis was carried out for numerical cases with different temperatures of the surrounding rock mass in order to examine the effect of rock mass heating due to periodic storage and production of thermal energy on thermal stratification and heat loss. The change of thermal stratification with respect to time was quantitatively examined based on an index of the degree of stratification. The results of numerical simulation showed that in the early operational stage where the surrounding rock mass was less heated, the stratification of stored thermal energy was rapidly degraded over time, but the degradation and heat loss tended to reduce as the surrounding rock mass was heated during a long period of operation.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.434-445
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• 2010

Underground compressed air energy storage (CAES) system in a lined rock cavern is considered one of the promising large-scale energy storage technologies. In this study, permeabilities of concrete lining block and its construction joint, which are the major components of an air tightness system of the undeground CAES, were measured from a model experiment. From the experiment, it was found that intrinsic permeability of construction joint was larger than that of concrete block by the order scale of $10^1{\sim}10^4$, so that it would be very important to control the quality of construction joints in-situ in order to secure air tightness of storage system. And the permeability of construction joint could be decreased as low as that of the concrete block by pasting an acryl-type adhesive on bonding surfaces. Higher degrees of water saturation of the concrete block resulted in the lower permeability, which is more preferable in the viewpoint of air tightness of storage cavern.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 1998

This paper investigates coupled thermal, mechanical and hydraulic phenomena in deep rock mass especially for underground heat storage system. Firstly, concepts of underground heat storage were presented and coupling phenomena in this area were illustrated. In order to understand the basic mechanism of thermal, hydraulic and deformation behavior in rock cavern disturbed by thermal gradient about 10$0^{\circ}C$, various numerical experiments were conducted using several codes. The study involves the behavior of fractured rock mass including rock joint. In spite of the limitation of codes modelling fully coupled effects, these codes could be applied in analysis of underground heat storage. The heat loss in rock mass, which is a major factor in heat storage, is insignificant in all results.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.297-306
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• 2011

In this paper, we performed thermodynamic energy balance analysis of the underground lined rock cavern for compressed air energy storage (CAES) using the results of multi-phase heat flow analysis to simulate complex groundwater-compressed air flow around the cavern as well as heat transfer to concrete linings and surrounding rock mass. Our energy balance analysis demonstrated that the energy loss for a daily compression and decompression cycle predominantly depends on the energy loss by heat conduction to the concrete linings and surrounding rock mass for a sufficiently air-tight system with low permeability of the concrete linings. Overall energy efficiency of the underground lined rock caverns for CAES was sensitive to air injection temperature, and the energy loss by heat conduction can be minimized by keeping the air injection temperature closer to the ambient temperature of the surroundings. In such a case, almost all the heat loss during compression phase was gained back in a subsequent decompression phase. Meanwhile, the influence of heat conductivity of the concrete linings to energy efficiency was negligible.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.293-303
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• 2018

Monitoring is the act of collecting and analyzing accurate engineering information using various methods and instruments. The purposes of the monitoring are design verification, construction management, quality control, safety management, and diagnose of structure etc.. The diagnose evaluation of the geotechnical structures corresponds to the confirmation of the structural performance. It is aimed to judge the soundness of geotechnical structures considering the degree of damage due to the environmental change and elapsed time. Recently, microseismicity, which is widely known in Korea, can be used for safety management and diagnoses of structure as it detects the micro-damage without disturbance of the structure. This report provides guideline on the procedure for assessing an underground oil storage cavern using microseismic monitoring techniques. Guidelines cover the selection of monitoring systems, sensor array, sensor installation and operation of systems, and interpretation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 1996

In case waste disposal site is to be constructed close to the underground facilities such as LPG storage cavern which is completely maintained by groundwater pressure, it is generally requested that the possibility on leachate contamination of cavern area be reviewed and the countermeasure, if it is estimated cavern area is severely affected by leachate, be taken into consideration. Prediction was performed and leachate control plan was made using by analytical and the numerical analysis on the leachate migration which is likely to happen at the area between the proposed waste disposal site and the underground LPG storage cavern located at the U petrochemical complex. Analytical solutions were obtained by the conservative mass advection-diffusion equation and the effect of advection and dispersion factor on the leachate migration was reviewed through peclet number calculation and the functional relationship between the factors and leachate transport velocity was established, which leads to enable us to predict the leachate transport velocity without difficulties when different parameters (factors) are used for analytical solution. Numerical solutions were obtained by FEM using AQUA2D which is for the simulation of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. 3-D discrete fracture models were simulated and fracture flow analysis was performed and feasibility study on the water-curtain system was conducted through the fracture connectivity analysis in rock mass. As results of those analyses, it was interpreted that the leachate would trespass on the LPG storage cavern area in 30 years from the proposed wate disposal site and the vertical water-curtain system was effective mathod for the prevention of leachate's migration further into the cavern area.