High level waste near-field repositories

Grambow, B. 1991. What do we know about nuclear waste glass performance in the repository near field In Sellin, P., Apted, M. Gago, J. (eds) Proceedings Technical Workshop on Near-Field Performance Assessment for High-Level Wastes, Madrid, Spain. SKB Technical Report 91-59. Stockholm, Sweden, 25-49. 

Fig. 1. Potential colloid generation processes in a nuclear waste repository near field (for explanation, see text) (HLW, high-level waste EBS, engineered barrier system).

Berner, U. 2002a. Project Opalinus Clay Radionuclide Concentration Limits in the Near-Field of a Repository for Spent Fuel and Vitrified High-Level Waste. Nagra Technical Report NTB 02-10, Nagra, Wettingen, Switzerland. Also issued as PSI Bericht Nr. 02-22, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villi-gen, Switzerland. 

A RESEARCH PROGRAM FOR NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS ON THE COUPLED THERMO-HYDRO-MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL PROCESSES IN THE NEAR-FIELD OF A HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE REPOSITORY... 

Abstract In the near-field of a high-level radioactive waste (HLW) repository, the coupled thermo -hydro -mechanical and chemical (T-H-M-C) processes will occur. Observation periods by laboratory and in-situ experiments are very short and information by natural analogue studies is very limited, so numerical experiments are the only available approach to predict the near-field long-term evolution. We have initiated a research on the coupled T-H-M-C processes and are trying to carry out numerical experiments on the coupled T-H-M-C processes in order to predict the near-field long-term evolution. This paper presents our current status and future activities on the research for numerical experiments on the coupled T-H-M-C processes. 

Our activities on development of the coupled T-H-M-C code and further demonstration analysis are presented by Neyama et al. in GeoProc 2003 conference, entitled Prototype Code Development for Numerical Experiments on the Coupled Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical and Chemical Processes in the Near-field of a High-level Radioactive Waste Repository . The prototype code is based on the coupled T-H-M code, mass transport code and geochemical code which have been well verified and validated through benchmark tests and various experiments, and... 

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