Numerical Investigation on Anisotropic Deformation around Gas Storage Cavern in Jointed Rock Mass

Hydrogen storage is expected to play a crucial role in future power and energy balancing. One proposed method is the use of lined rock caverns (LRC). During the construction of the LRC demonstration plant in Skallen, Sweden, field displacement monitoring revealed noticeable anisotropy. However, a discrepancy was identified between the monitored and calculated convergence obtained from the previous simulations, which were limited to two dimensions and did not consider the presence of joint sets in the rock mass. This paper is to examine the impact of different joint sets on the deformation behavior around the LRC during the construction phase using a 3D model. The results demonstrate that the presence of joints with varying orientations has diverse effects on the symmetric characteristics of the deformation pattern and the degree of anisotropy in the deformation magnitude. The findings enhance the understanding of the deformation behavior of LRC in jointed rock masses and provide insights for identifying the critical joint set(s) through model calibration.