Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-05T12:47:30.452Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Near-Field Thermal-Hydrological Behavior for Alternative Repository Designs at Yucca Mountain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2012

Thomas A. Buscheck ,
John J. Nitao  and
Lawrence D. Ramspott
Thomas A. Buscheck
Affiliation:
Geological Sciences and Environmental Technologies Division, LLNL
John J. Nitao
Affiliation:
Geological Sciences and Environmental Technologies Division, LLNL
Lawrence D. Ramspott
Affiliation:
TRW (all at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, L-206, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, CA 94551)
Get access

Abstract

Three-dimensional calculations that explicitly represent a realistic mixture of waste packages (WPs) are used to analyze decay-heat-driven thermal-hydrological behavior around emplacement drifts in a potential high-level waste facility at Yucca Mountain. Calculations, using the NUFT code, compare two fundamentally different ways that WPs can be arranged in the repository, with a focus on temperature, relative humidity, and liquid-phase flux on WPs. These quantities strongly affect WP integrity and the mobilization and release of radionuclides from WPs. Point-load spacing, which places the WPs roughly equidistant from each other, thermally isolates WPs from each other, causing large variability in temperature, relative humidity, and liquid-phase flux along the drifts. Line-load spacing, which places WPs nearly end to end in widely spaced drifts, results in more locally intensive and uniform heating along the drifts, causing hotter, drier, and more uniform conditions. A larger and more persistent reduction in relative humidity on WPs occurs if the drifts are backfilled with a low-thermal-conductivity granular material with hydrologie properties that minimize moisture wicking.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 465: Symposium II – Scienfific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XX , 1996 , 1029
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Stahl, D., McCoy, J.K., and McCright, R.D., “Impact of Thermal Loading on Waste Package Material Performance,” Proceedings Material Research Society XVIII Symposium on the Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management, Material Research Society, Pittsburgh, PA, Oct. 23–27 (1994).Google Scholar
2. CRWMS Management and Operating Contractor, “Mined Geologic Disposal System Advanced Conceptual Design Report,” Vol. 2, B00000000–01717–5705–00027, Rev. 00 (1996).Google Scholar
3. Buscheck, T.A. in Wilder, D.G. (editor), Near-Field and Altered-Zone Environment Report, Volume II, Chapter 1: “Hydrothermal Modeling,” UCRL-JC-124998, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA (1996).Google Scholar
4. Nitao, J.J., “The NUFT Code for Modeling Nonisothermal, Multiphase, Multicomponent Flow and Transport in Porous Media,” EOS, American Geophysical Union, Vol. 74, no. 3, pg. 3 (1992).Google Scholar
5. Peters, R.R., Klavetter, E.A., Hall, I.J., Blair, S.C., Hellers, P.R., and Gee, G.W., Fracture and Matrix Hydrologie Characteristics of Tuffaceous Materials from Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, SAND84–1471, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM (1984).Google Scholar
6. Buscheck, T.A., Nitao, J.J., and Ramspott, L.D. “Localized Dryout: An Approach for Managing the Thermal-Hydrological Effects of Decay Heat at Yucca Mountain,” Proceedings Materials Research Society XIX International Symposium on the Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management, Materials Research Society, Pittsburgh, PA, Nov. 27-Dec. 1, 1995. Also UCRL-JC-121232, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA (1995).Google Scholar
7. Jones, D.A., Principles and Prevention of Corrosion (Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, (1992).Google Scholar