Potential increases in natural radon emissions due to heating of the Yucca Mountain rock mass
- Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (US)
This paper reports on the heating of the rock mass by the spent fuel in the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain which will cause extra amounts of natural radon to diffuse into the fracture system and to migrate faster to the accessible environment. Indeed, free-convection currents due to heating will act to shorten the radon travel times and will cause large releases than would be possible under undisturbed conditions. To estimate the amount of additional radon released due to heating of the Yucca Mountain rock mass, we obtain and expression for the release enhancement factor, E. This factor is defined as the ratio between the total flux of radon at the surface of the mountain before and after closure of the repository assuming the only cause of disturbance to be the heating of the rock mass. With appropriate approximations and using a heat load representative of that expected at Yucca Mountain, the present calculations indicate that the average enhancement factor over the first 10,000 years will be 4.5 as a minimum. These calculations are based on the assumption that barometric pumping does not significantly influence radon release. The latter assumption will need to be substantiated.
- OSTI ID:
- 140837
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-920430--; ISBN 0-87262-891-4
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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