Continuous measurements of stress and temperature during testing of a fibre shotcrete pressure plug

The paper describes an investigation of pressure barriers (plugs) for an underground gas storage facility which were to be constructed from fibre shotcrete. An extensive measurement program on a test plug was carried out to verify the suitability of fibre shotcrete for this purpose. The results of stress and temperature measurements carried out during the construction of the test plug and during cyclic loading of the plug to a water pressure up to 13 MPa are presented. The measurement program provided information on the stress and temperature development inside the plug body during hydration and hardening and also on the residual tensile stresses at the interface between the plug and the rock mass after the end of hydration. Another important output was information on the quality of the plug-rock mass interface, which was critical for a possible leakage. The results obtained during the cyclic loading of the plug revealed uneven stress distribution at the contact and in the adjacent rock mass. It also provided information on the rate of stress redistribution at the contact and inside the rock mass. The results were used to modify the technology of the shotcrete technique to be applied in the final plugs. The gas storage facility using the modified design has been in trial operation since the end of 1998.