Modeling water seepage into heated waste emplacement drifts at Yucca Mountain
- LBNL Library
This paper describes numerical prediction of the coupled thermal-hydrological processes (TH) in the vicinity of waste emplacement drifts during the heating phase of the proposed geologic repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Heating of rock water to above-boiling conditions induces water saturation changes and perturbed water fluxes that affect the potential of water seepage into drifts. In addition to the capillary barrier at the rock-drift interface--independent of the thermal conditions--a second barrier exists to downward percolation at above-boiling conditions. This barrier is caused by vaporization of water in the fractured rock overlying the repository. A TOUGH2 simulation model was developed to analyze the combined effect of these two barriers; it accounts for all relevant TH processes in response to heating, while incorporating the capillary barrier condition at the drift wall. Model results are presented for a variety of simulation cases.
- Research Organization:
- Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office. Office of Licensing and Regulatory Compliance (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 813582
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL--52500
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
DRIFT-SCALE COUPLED PROCESSES (DST AND TH SEEPAGE) MODELS
Drift-Scale Coupled Processes (DST and TH Seepage) Models