Salt brickwork as long-term sealing in salt formations
- GSF-Forschungszentrum fuer Umwelt und Gesundheit, GmbH, Braunschweig (Germany). Inst. fuer Tieflagerung
Radioactive wastes can be disposed of in deep salt formations. Rock salt is a suitable geologic medium because of its unique characteristics. Open boreholes, shafts and drifts are created to provide physical access to the repository. Long-term seals must be emplaced in these potential pathways to prevent radioactive release into the biosphere. The sealing materials must be mechanically and, most important, geochemically stable within the host rock. Salt bricks made from compressed salt-powder are understood to be the first choice long-term sealing material. Seals built of salt bricks will be ductile. Large sealing systems are built by combining the individual bricks with mortar. Raw materials for mortar are fine-grained halite powder and ground saliferous clay. This provides for the good adhesive strength of the mortar to the bricks and the high shear-strength of the mortar itself. To test the interaction of rock salt with an emplaced long-term seal, experiments will be carried out in situ, in the Asse salt mine in Germany. Simple borehole sealing experiments will be performed in horizontal holes and a complicated drift sealing experiment is planned, to demonstrate the technology of sealing a standard size drift or shaft inside a disturbed rock mass. Especially, the mechanical stability of the sealing system has to be demonstrated.
- OSTI ID:
- 100789
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-930906-; ISBN 0-7918-0691-X; TRN: 95:019595
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: `93 international conference on nuclear waste management and environmental remediation, Prague (Czech Republic), 5-11 Sep 1993; Other Information: PBD: 1993; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the 1993 international conference on nuclear waste management and environmental remediation. Volume 1: Low and intermediate level radioactive waste management; Alexandre, D.; Baker, R.; Kohout, R.; Marek, J. [eds.]; PB: 776 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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