The UFA technology for characterization of in situ barrier materials
- Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
- Washington State Univ. Tri-Cities, Richland, WA (United States)
Site characterizations, choices of remedial strategies for site restoration, and performance assessments of chosen strategies all require knowledge of the transport properties for subsurface materials, such as hydraulic conductivities, diffusion coefficients, sorption properties, and in situ recharge rates. Unsaturated conditions in the vadose zone are especially difficult to investigate because of the extreme variability in the transport properties of geologic materials as a function of water content. A new technique, the Unsaturated Flow Apparatus (UFA), was developed to rapidly attain hydraulic steady-state in all porous/fractured media, including multicomponent/multiphase systems. The larger driving forces obtainable with centrifugation techniques are combined with precision fluid flow through a rotating seal. Hydraulic steady state is achieved in a period of hours to days, instead of months to years, depending on the target water content and intrinsic permeability of the material. Barrier materials such as bentonite slurries, chemical barriers, cements, and asphalt concretes can be rapidly run in the UFA prior to emplacement to fine-tune formulations and identify any site-specific or substrate-specific problems that could not be identified without actual field testing.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC06-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 10120620
- Report Number(s):
- PNL-SA-24702; CONF-941124-15; ON: DE95007284; TRN: 95:002137
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 33. Hanford symposium on health and the environment: symposium on in-situ remediation--scientific basis for current and future technologies,Richland, WA (United States),7-11 Nov 1994; Other Information: PBD: Nov 1994
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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