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Interactions between the co-located intermediate-level waste/low-level waste and high-level waste/spent fuel components of a geological disposal facility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

T. W. Hicks ,
S. Watson ,
S. Norris ,
G. Towler ,
D. Reedha ,
A. Paulley ,
T. Baldwin  and
A. E. Bond
T. W. Hicks*
Affiliation:
Galson Sciences Limited, 5 Grosvenor House, Melton Road, Oakham, Rutland LE15 6AX, UK
S. Watson
Affiliation:
Quintessa Limited, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
S. Norris
Affiliation:
NDA Radioactive Waste Management Directorate, Building 587, Curie Avenue, Harwell, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 ORH, UK
G. Towler
Affiliation:
Quintessa Limited, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
D. Reedha
Affiliation:
Galson Sciences Limited, 5 Grosvenor House, Melton Road, Oakham, Rutland LE15 6AX, UK
A. Paulley
Affiliation:
Quintessa Limited, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
T. Baldwin
Affiliation:
Galson Sciences Limited, 5 Grosvenor House, Melton Road, Oakham, Rutland LE15 6AX, UK
A. E. Bond
Affiliation:
Quintessa Limited, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
*
*E-mail: twh@galson-sciences.co.uk
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Abstract

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The 2008 UK government White Paper, published as part of the Managing Radioactive Waste Safety programme, identified benefits to disposing of all of the UK's higher activity wastes at the same site. That is, a single geological disposal facility (GDF) could be constructed that consists of a module for low- and intermediate-level waste, and a module for high-level waste and spent fuel.

A safety case for a co-located GDF will have to consider the extent to which evolving thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical and gas (THMCG) conditions in and around one module may affect conditions in the other module, including the extent to which barrier performance and radionuclide migration behaviour could be altered. Several research projects have been undertaken on behalf of Radioactive Waste Management Directorate aimed at understanding and evaluating the THMCG interactions that might occur during the disposal facility operational and post-closure phases.

This paper describes research on THMCG interactions between disposal modules based on illustrative GDF designs for different host rock environments. Interactions were evaluated using simple analytical solutions and detailed three-dimensional models. The analyses demonstrated that interactions can be controlled by design constraints.

Keywords

disposal facilityradioactive waste
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 76 , Issue 8 , December 2012 , pp. 3475 - 3482
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
© [2012] The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2012

References

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