The Mechanical Behavior of Salt – Understanding of THMC Processes in Salt Proceedings of the 6th Conference (SaltMech6), Hannover, Germany, 22–25 May 2007

A unique opportunity to review the latest progress in an expanding area of interest: the Mechanical Behaviour of Salt. These Proceedings include over fifty papers and summaries describing the latest findings in ongoing studies from a number of research groups. For the 2007 conference, there was a particular focus on the understanding of thermal, mechanical, hydraulic and chemical coupled processes (THMC). Such processes are of specific interest when considering advanced problems in waste disposal, storage and mining. The book includes a number of themes:

- laboratory and in-situ investigations modelling, e.g. derivation of constitutive equations

- numerical computations and prediction of long-term behaviour

- THMC processes in mining projects, storage and permanent disposal

- case studies

- geology

- mining and storage applications and abandonment

The International Conferences on the Mechanical Behaviour of Salt have a long tradition, being initiated in 1981 at The Pennsylvania State University, USA. The present conference, the sixth of the series, took place in Hannover, Germany, in May 2007. The conference brought together mining engineers, researchers, and university professors interested in the mechanical behaviour of salt, mostly from Europe and beyond.