Decovalex-2019 (Task A Final Report)

Technical Report · Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1762801· OSTI ID:1762801

Tamayo-Mas, E. ^[1]; Harrington, J. F. ^[1]; Brüning, T. ^[2]; Kolditz, O. ^[2]; Shao, H. ^[2]; Dagher, E. E. ^[3]; Lee, C. ^[4]; Lee, J. ^[4]; Kim, Kunhwi ^[5]; Lai, S. H. ^[6]; Chittenden, N. ^[7]; Wang, Y. ^[8]; Damians, I. P. ^[9]; Olivella, S. ^[9]

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1. British Geological Survey, Nottingham (United Kingdom)
2. Federal Inst. for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Hanover (Germany)
3. Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Ottawa, ON (Canada); Univ. of Ottawa, ON (Canada)
4. Korea Atomic Energy Research Inst., Daejeon (Korea)
5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
6. National Central Univ. (Taiwan)
7. Quintessa Ltd, Oxfordshire (United Kingdom)
8. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
9. Univ. Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona (Spain)

The DECOVALEX Project is an on-going international research collaboration, established in 1992, to advance the understanding and modeling of coupled Thermal (T), Hydrological (H), Mechanical (M) and Chemical (C) processes in geological in geological systems. This document is the final report of Task A which was proposed by the DECOVALEX Project and coordinated by the British Geological Survey (BGS), presenting the technical definitions of the problems studied, approaches applied, achievements made and outstanding issues for future research. The purpose of Task A under DECOVALEX-2019 is to better understand the processes governing the advective movement of gas in both low-permeability argillaceous repository host rocks and clay-based engineered barriers. Special attention is given to the mechanisms controlling gas entry, flow and pathway sealing and their impact on the performance of the engineered clay barrier. Previous work suggests gas flow may be accompanied by the creation of dilatant pathways whose properties change temporally and spatially within the medium. Thus, new numerical representations for the quantitative prediction of gas migration fluxes through argillaceous rock formations have been developed. These provide an invaluable tool with which to assess the impact of gas flow on repository layout and therefore design of any future facility. In addition, experience gained through this task is of direct relevance to other clay-based engineering issues where immiscible gas flow is a consideration including shale gas, hydrocarbon migration, carbon capture and storage and landfill design.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• Contributing Organization: DECOVALEX Project
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 1762801
• Report Number(s): LBNL-2001262
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES