Permeability of natural rock salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) during damage evolution and healing
- RE/SPEC Inc., Rapid City, SD (United States)
- Sandia National Lab., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
The US Department of Energy has developed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in the bedded salt of southeastern New Mexico to demonstrate the safe disposal of radioactive transuranic wastes. Four vertical shafts provide access to the underground workings located at a depth of about 660 meters. These shafts connect the underground facility to the surface and potentially provide communication between lithologic units, so they will be sealed to limit both the release of hazardous waste from and fluid flow into the repository. The seal design must consider the potential for fluid flow through a disturbed rock zone (DRZ) that develops in the salt near the shafts. The DRZ, which forms initially during excavation and then evolves with time, is expected to have higher permeability than the native salt. The closure of the shaft openings (i.e., through salt creep) will compress the seals, thereby inducing a compressive back-stress on the DRZ. This back-stress is expected to arrest the evolution of the DRZ, and with time will promote healing of damage. This paper presents laboratory data from tertiary creep and hydrostatic compression tests designed to characterize damage evolution and healing in WIPP salt. Healing is quantified in terms of permanent reduction in permeability, and the data are used to estimate healing times based on considerations of first-order kinetics.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 650135
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-98-0417C; CONF-980620-; ON: DE98002815; BR: EW3155010; TRN: 98:010086
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 3. North American Rock Mechanics Society conference, Cancun (Mexico), 3-5 Jun 1998; Other Information: PBD: Jun 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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