Studies of non-isothermal flow in saturated and partially saturated porous media
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Coupled thermal and hydrologic flow processes in unsaturated fractured rocks are important in the evaluation of Yucca Mountain as a potential repository for high level nuclear waste. Physical and numerical experiments have been performed to investigate the behavior of non-isothermal flow in two-dimensional saturated and partially saturated porous media. The physical experiments were performed to identify non-isothermal flow fields and temperature distributions in fully saturated, half-saturated, and residually saturated two-dimensional porous media with bottom heating and top cooling. Two counter-rotating liquid-phase convective cells were observed to develop in the saturated regions of all three cases. Gas-phase convection was also evidenced in the unsaturated regions of the partially saturated experiments. TOUGH2 numerical simulations of the saturated case were found to be strongly dependent on the assumed boundary conditions of the physical system. Models including heat losses through the boundaries of the test cell produced temperature and flow fields that were in better agreement with the observed temperature and flow fields than models that assumed insulated boundary conditions. A sensitivity analysis also showed that a reduction of the bulk permeability of the porous media in the numerical simulations depressed the effect of convection, flattening the temperature profiles across the test cell.
- Research Organization:
- American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), New York, NY (United States); American Nuclear Society (ANS), La Grange Park, IL (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 60978
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-940553-Vol.4; TRN: 94:010821-0087
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International high-level radioactive waste management conference, Las Vegas, NV (United States), 22-26 May 1994; Other Information: PBD: 1994; Related Information: Is Part Of High Level Radioactive Waste Management: Proceedings of the fifth annual international conference. Volume 4; PB: 1048 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
58 GEOSCIENCES
YUCCA MOUNTAIN
SITE CHARACTERIZATION
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
HEAT FLUX
TWO-PHASE FLOW
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
PERMEABILITY
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
FLOW MODELS
THERMODYNAMICS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
Yucca Mountain Project