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Near-Field Thermal-Hydrological Behavior for AlternativeRepository Designs at Yucca Mountain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2012

Thomas A. Buscheck ,
John J. Nitao  and
Lawrence D. Ramspott
Thomas A. Buscheck
Affiliation:
Geological Sciences and Environmental Technologies Division, LLNL
John J. Nitao
Affiliation:
Geological Sciences and Environmental Technologies Division, LLNL
Lawrence D. Ramspott
Affiliation:
TRW (all at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, L-206, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, CA 94551)
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Abstract

Three-dimensional calculations that explicitly represent a realistic mixtureof waste packages (WPs) are used to analyze decay-heat-driventhermal-hydrological behavior around emplacement drifts in a potentialhigh-level waste facility at Yucca Mountain. Calculations, using the NUFTcode, compare two fundamentally different ways that WPs can be arranged inthe repository, with a focus on temperature, relative humidity, andliquid-phase flux on WPs. These quantities strongly affect WP integrity andthe mobilization and release of radionuclides from WPs. Point-load spacing,which places the WPs roughly equidistant from each other, thermally isolatesWPs from each other, causing large variability in temperature, relativehumidity, and liquid-phase flux along the drifts. Line-load spacing, whichplaces WPs nearly end to end in widely spaced drifts, results in morelocally intensive and uniform heating along the drifts, causing hotter,drier, and more uniform conditions. A larger and more persistent reductionin relative humidity on WPs occurs if the drifts are backfilled with alow-thermal-conductivity granular material with hydrologie properties thatminimize moisture wicking.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 465: Symposium II – Scienfific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XX , 1996 , 1029
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1997

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References

REFERENCES

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