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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Radiation damage has been studied in natural rock salt from various localities, including potential repository sites. In the 100 to 300 C range the damage consists of point defects, primarily F-centers, and colloidal metal sodium particles. With increasing dose the F-centers grow to a saturation level, reached at 107 –108 rad, that decreases with increasing temperature to a negligible level at 300 C. Colloid concentration vs. irradiation-time curves follow nucleation and growth curves accurately described by C tn, or C(dose)n, relations at large irradiation times. For fourteen samples,n = 1.85± 0.18 but the values of C vary by a factor of more than 103. The constant C is related to the sample strain, the impurity and void content, dose rate, and possibly other factors. The currently available data indicate that rock salt adjacent to radioactive waste canisters, at a temperature of 150 C, will contain between 0.01 and 10 mole percent of sodium metal when the total dose reaches 1010 rad.
Now with Ford Aerospace and Communications Corp., Palo, Alto, California.
Physics Department
Now with Brookhaven National Laboratory Dept. of Nuclear Energy - NRC Nuclear Waste Management Division.
Research supported by the Dept. of Energy Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation, operated by Battelle Inst.-Columbus, Ohio, and the Dept. of Energy Division of Basic Energy Sciences, under contract DE–AC02–76CH00016.