Waste migration in shallow burial sites under unsaturated flow conditions

Conference · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:6411030

Eicholz, G G; Whang, J

Unsaturated conditions prevail in many shallow-land burial sites, both in arid and humid regions. Unless a burial site is allowed to flood and possibly overflow, a realistic assessment of any migration scenario must take into account the conditions of unsaturated flow. These are more difficult to observe and to model, but introduce significant changes into projected rates of waste leaching and waste migration. Column tests have been performed using soils from the Southeastern coastal plain to observe the effects of varying degrees of ''unsaturation'' on the movement of radioactive tracers. The moisture content in the columns was controlled by maintaining various levels of hydrostatic suction on soil columns whose hydrodynamic characteristics had been determined carefully. Tracer tests, employing Cs-137, I-131 and Ba-133 were used to determine migration profiles and to follow their movement down the column for different suction values. A calculational model has been developed for unsaturated flow and seems to match the observations fairly well. It is evident that a full description of migration processes must take into account the reduced migration rates under unsaturated conditions and the hysteresis effects associated with wetting-drying cycles.

• Research Organization: Georgia Inst. of Tech., Atlanta (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-76SR00001
• OSTI ID: 6411030
• Report Number(s): DP-MS-87-25; CONF-870306-53; ON: DE87010187
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
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HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
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ISOTOPE APPLICATIONS
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RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
RADIOISOTOPES
RADIONUCLIDE MIGRATION
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SIMULATION
SOILS
TRACER TECHNIQUES
UNDERGROUND DISPOSAL
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTES
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES