Cyclic Thermo-Mechanical Analysis of Wellbore in Underground Compressed Air Energy Storage Cavern

The compressed air energy storage (CAES) method is a viable method of storing surplus energy underground when there is a mismatch between energy generation and demand. Wellbores embedded in rock are an integral part of energy storage structures, and are used for injecting and extracting the compressed air. During injection and production cycles, the storage reservoir and wellbore are subjected to cyclic change in external pressure and temperature, which may cause failure of the wellbore. In this paper, cyclic thermo-mechanical analysis of a horizontal wellbore in an underground CAES cavern is performed using finite element analysis. The rock behavior is simulated using the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive law. The reduction in the yield strength of rock with increase in the number of loading cycles is taken into account in the analysis. Parametric sensitivity studies are carried out to study the effects of dilation and friction angles of rock, the ratio of in situ horizontal and vertical stresses, loading frequency, and the magnitude of the temperature cycles in the cavern on the wellbore performance for different types of rock. The thermo-mechanical cyclic behavior leads to plastic strains that are greater than those obtained by performing mechanical analysis only. Significantly large deformation is generated in rock for large dilation angle and high loading frequencies.