Effect of percolation rate on water-travel time in deep, partially saturated zones

Conference · Fri Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1986

OSTI ID:60023

Peters, R R; Gauthier, J H; Dudley, A L

The Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Investigations (NNWSI) project is investigating Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, as a prospective site for a radioactive-waste repository. The Yucca Mountain site is unique among those currently being investigated by the US Department of Energy (DOE) in that the prospective repository location is in the unsaturated zone, approximately 300 m above the water table. A composite-porosity, continuum model was developed to model flow in a fractured, porous medium. Simulations using data from the Yucca Mountain site and this model in the one-dimensional code TOSPAC indicate that current estimates of the percolation rate result in water movement confined to the matrix and that the water-travel time from the repository to the water table in on the order of hundreds of thousands of years. This result is sensitive to the percolation rate; an increase in percolation rate of a factor of 10 may initiate water movement in the fractures, reducing the travel time significantly.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States); Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 60023
• Report Number(s): NUREG/CP--0079; PNL-SA--13796; CONF-8505180--; ON: TI87002232
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES
COMPUTER CODES
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
FLOW MODELS
FLOW RATE
FRACTURED RESERVOIRS
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
GROUND WATER
HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
NEVADA
PERFORMANCE
POROSITY
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
RADIONUCLIDE MIGRATION
US DOE
WATER TABLES
Yucca Mountain Project