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The Tournemire industrial analogue: reactive-transport modelling of a cement–clay interface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2018

C. Watson ,
D. Savage ,
J. Wilson ,
S. Benbow ,
C. Walker  and
S. Norris
C. Watson*
Affiliation:
Quintessa Ltd., The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
D. Savage
Affiliation:
Savage Earth Associates Limited, 32 St Albans Avenue, Bournemouth, BH8 9EE, UK
J. Wilson
Affiliation:
Quintessa Ltd., The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
S. Benbow
Affiliation:
Quintessa Ltd., The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
C. Walker
Affiliation:
JAEA, 4-33 Muramatsu, Tokai, Naka-gun, Ibaraki, 319-1194, Japan
S. Norris
Affiliation:
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Building 587, Curie Avenue, Harwell, Oxfordshire OX11 0RH, UK
*
*E-mail: clairewatson@quintessa.org
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Abstract

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In the post-closure period of a geological disposal facility for radioactive waste, leaching of cement components is likely to give rise to an alkaline plume which will be in chemical disequilibrium with the host rock (which is clay in some concepts) and other engineered barrier system materials used in the facility, such as bentonite. An industrial analogue for cement-clay interaction can be found at Tournemire, southern France, where boreholes filled with concrete and cement remained in contact with the natural mudstone for 15–20 years. The boreholes have been overcored, extracted and mineralogical characterization has been performed. In this study, a reactive-transport model of the Tournemire system has been set up using the general-purpose modelling tool QPAC. Previous modelling work has been built upon by using the most up-to-date data and modelling techniques, and by adding both ion exchange and surface complexation processes in the mudstone. The main features observed at Tournemire were replicated by the model, including porosity variations and precipitation of carbonates, K-feldspar, ettringite and calcite. It was found that ion exchange needed to be included in order for C-S-H minerals to precipitate in the mudstone, providing a better match with the mineralogical characterization. The additional inclusion of surface complexation, however, led to limited calcite growth at the concrete-mudstone interface unlike samples taken from the Tournemire site that have a visible line of crusty carbonates along the interface.

Keywords

cement-clayalterationURLmodellingalkalineTournemire
Type
Research Article
Information
Clay Minerals , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 167 - 184
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2013 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2013

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