Publications
Computational geomechanics & applications at Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is a multi-program national laboratory in the business of national security, whose primary mission is nuclear weapons (NW). It is a prime contractor to the USDOE, operating under the NNSA and is one of the three NW national laboratories. It has a long history of involvement in the area of geomechanics, starting with the some of the earliest weapons tests at Nevada. Projects in which geomechanics support (in general) and computational geomechanics support (in particular) are at the forefront at Sandia, range from those associated with civilian programs to those in the defense programs. SNL has had significant involvement and participation in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (low-level defense nuclear waste), the Yucca Mountain Project (formerly proposed for commercial spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste), and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (the nation's emergency petroleum store). In addition, numerous industrial partners seek-out our computational/geomechanics expertise, and there are efforts in compressed air and natural gas storage, as well as in CO{sub 2} Sequestration. Likewise, there have also been collaborative past efforts in the areas of compactable reservoir response, the response of salt structures associated with reservoirs, and basin modeling for the Oil & Gas industry. There are also efforts on the defense front, ranging from assessment of vulnerability of infrastructure to defeat of hardened targets, which require an understanding and application of computational geomechanics. Several examples from some of these areas will be described and discussed to give the audience a flavor of the type of work currently being performed at Sandia in the general area of geomechanics.