skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Bell Canyon test and results

Conference ·
OSTI ID:7177549

The purposes of the Borehold Plugging Program are: to identify issues associated with sealing boreholes and shafts; to establish a data base from which to assess the importance of these issues; and to develop sealing criteria, materials, and demonstrative test for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The Bell Canyon Test described in this report is one part of that program. Its purpose was to evaluate, in situ, the state of the art in borehole plugs and to identify and resolve problems encountered in evaluating a typical plug installation in anhydrite. The test results are summarized from the work of Peterson and Christensen and divided into two portions: system integrity and wellbore characterization tests prior to plug installation, and a series of tests to evaluate isolation characteristics of the 1.8-m-long plug. Conclusions of the Bell Canyon Test are: brine and fresh-water grouts, with acceptable physical properties in the fluid and hardened states, have been developed; the field data, taken together with laboratory data, suggest that the predominant flow into the test region occurs through the cement plug/borehold interface region, with lesser contributions occurring through the wellbore damage zone, the plug core, and the surrounding undisturbed anhydrite bed; and the 1.8-m-long by 20-cm-diameter grout plug, installed in anhydrite at a depth of 1370 m in the AEC-7 borehole, limits flow from the high pressure Bell Canyon aquifer to 0.6 liters/day.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-76DP00789
OSTI ID:
7177549
Report Number(s):
SAND-80-2414C; CONF-801124-3; TRN: 80-018565
Resource Relation:
Conference: 3. annual meeting of the Materials Research Society, Boston, MA, USA, 17 Nov 1980
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English