Heat and mass transfer and creep in underground oil storage with cavern

To ensure cavern tightness and safety, the models of heat transfer between oil, brine and surrounding rock, thermal pressurization rate, halite creep, and seepage were established and TDMA algorithm was adopted to solve them. The results suggest that the temperature and the pressure will increase by 8.635°C and 8.97 MPa in seven years storage process, respectively, i.e., an approximate value of 1 MPa/°C. The creep rate will decrease with the increase in storage time, and the penetration could be neglected due to little penetrability. In addition, temperature will have significant influence on the cavern pressure and the influence will be determined by the ratio between the thermal expansion coefficient and the compressibility factor (α/β) of both oil and brine. It appears that the thermal expansion coefficient and the compressibility factor of both oil and brine should be measured precisely so that the liquid temperature and pressure in caverns can be predicted accurately.