Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T16:40:38.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The long-term cement studies project: the UK contribution to model development and testing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

C. E. Watson ,
D. Savage ,
J. Wilson ,
C. Walker  and
S. J. Benbow
C. E. Watson*
Affiliation:
Quintessa, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
D. Savage
Affiliation:
Savage Earth Associates, 32 St Alban's Avenue, Queen's Park, Bournemouth, Dorset BH8 9EE, UK
J. Wilson
Affiliation:
Quintessa, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
C. Walker
Affiliation:
JAEA, Tokai–mura, Naka–gun, Ibaraki–ken 319-1194., Japan
S. J. Benbow
Affiliation:
Quintessa, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
*
*E-mail: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The international long-term cement studies (LCS) project aims to increase the understanding of the behaviour of cement within a radioactive waste disposal system and how hyper-alkaline leachates may interact with host rock. Such an understanding enables confident, robust and safety-relevant statements to be made concerning future system behaviour, irrespective of host rock, engineered barrier system, or waste type. The LCS project involves laboratory experiments, in situ tests and numerical modelling to address these issues. The agencies participating are Nagra (Switzerland), JAEA (Japan), the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Radioactive Waste Mangement Directorate (UK), Posiva (Finland) and SKB (Sweden).

Project activities have included: the development of conceptual and theoretical models of cement–rock interaction; testing of numerical models against data from laboratory experiments and industrial and natural analogues of cement–rock reaction; and the synthesis and incorporation of performance assessment (PA) relevant data from analogue studies. Key threads running through these studies include an analysis of issues relating to upscaling of processes and data to the greater temporal and spatial scales relevant to PA, and investigations of modelling the changes in physical properties that accompany geochemical reaction. Here we present examples of the results from model test cases, highlighting the important issues that have arisen.

Keywords

engineered barrier systemsradioactive waste
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 76 , Issue 8 , December 2012 , pp. 3445 - 3455
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
© [2012] The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2012

References

Baur, I., Keller, P., Mavrocordatos, D., Wehrli, B. and Johnson, C.A. (2004) Dissolution- precipitation behaviour of ettringite, monosulfate, and calcium silicate hydrate. Cement and Concrete Research, 34, 341–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beaucaire, C., Michelot, J.-L., Savoye, S. and Cabrera, J. (2008) Groundwater characterisation and modelling of water-rock interaction in an argillaceous formation (Tournemire, France). Applied Geochemistry, 23, 2182–2197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradbury, M.H. and Baeyens, B. (2003) Porewater chemistry in compacted re-saturated MX-80 bentonite. Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, 61, 329–338.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Busenberg, E. and Plummer, L.N. (1982) The kinetics of dissolution of dolomite in CO2-H2O systems at 1.5 to 65ºC and 0 to 1 atm pCO2. American Journal of Science, 282, 45–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Windt, L., Marsal, F., Tinseau, E. and Pellegrini, D. (2008) Reactive transport modeling of geochemical interactions at a concrete/argillite interface, Tournemire site (France). Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 33, S295-S305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gribi, P., Johnson, L.H., Suter, D., Smith, P.A., Pastina, B. and Snellman, M. (2008) Safety Assessment for a KBS-3H Spent Nuclear Fuel Repository at Olkiluoto. Process report, SKB R-08–36. Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, Stockholm, Sweden.Google Scholar
Kline, W.E. and Fogler, H.S. (1981) Dissolution kinetics: the nature of the particle attack of layered silicates in HF. Chemical Engineering Science, 36, 871–884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kulik, D.A. and Kersten, M. (2001) Aqueous solubility diagrams for cementitious waste stabilization systems: II, end-member stoichiometries of ideal calcium silicate hydrate solid solutions. Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 84, 3017–3026.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lasaga, A.C. (1998) Kinetic Theory in the Earth Sciences. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 811 pp.Google Scholar
Lothenbach, B. and Winnefeld, F. (2006) Thermodynamic modelling of the hydration of Portland cement. Cement and Concrete Research, 36, 209–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lothenbach, B., Matschei, T., Moschner, G. and Glasser, F.P. (2008) Thermodynamic modelling of the effect of temperature on the hydration and porosity of Portland cement. Cement and Concrete Research, 38, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mao, L. (2010) Dissolution kinetics of scolecite in alkaline environments. Reinvention: a Journal of Undergraduate Research, 2.Google Scholar
Matschei, T., Lothenbach, B. and Glasser, F.P. (2007) Thermodynamic properties of Portland cement hydrates in the system CaO-Al2O3-SiO2–CaSO4– CaCO3-H2O. Cement and Concrete Research, 37, 1379–1410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palandri, J.L. and Kharaka, Y.K. (2004) A Compilation of Rate Parameters of Water-Mineral Interaction Kinetics for Application to Geochemical Modelling. USGS Open File Report 2004–1068. United States Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California, USA.Google Scholar
Plettinck, S., Chou, L. and Wollast, R. (1994) Kinetics and mechanisms of dissolution of silica at room temperature and pressure. V.M. Goldschmidt Abstracts, Edinburgh. Mineralogical Magazine, 58A, 728–729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sato, T., Kuroda, M., Yokoyama, S., Tsutsui, M., Fukushi, K., Tanaka, T. and Nakayama, S. (2004) Dissolution mechanism and kinetics of smectite under alkaline conditions. Pp. A3–38.A3–46.in: International Workshop on Bentonite-Cement Interaction in Repository Environments (R. Metcalfe and C. Walker, editors). NUMO/Posiva, Tokyo, Japan.Google Scholar
Savage, D., Cave, M.R., Haigh, D., Milodowski, A.E. and Young, M.E. (1993) The reaction kinetics of laumontite under hydrothermal conditions. European Journal of Mineralogy, 5, 523–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, D., Rochelle, C.A., Moore, Y., Milodowski, A., Bateman, K., Bailey, D. and Mihara, M. (2001) Analcime reactions at 25–90.C in hyperalkaline fluids. Mineralogical Magazine, 65, 571–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, D., Benbow, S., Watson, C., Takase, H., Ono, K., Oda, C. and Honda, A. (2010) Natural systems evidence for the alteration of clay under alkaline conditions: an example from Searles Lake, California. Applied Clay Science, 47, 72–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, D., Soler, J.M., Yamaguchi, K., Walker, C., Honda, A., Inagaki, M., Watson, C., Wilson, J., Benbow, S., Gaus, I. and Rueedi, J. (2011) A comparative study of the modelling of cement hydration and cement-rock laboratory experiments. Applied Geochemistry, 26, 1138–1152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smellie, J.A.T., Alexander, W.R., Degnan, P., Griffault, L., Mäder, U. and Trotignon, L. (2001) The role of the Jordan natural analogue studies in the performance assessment of cementitious repositories for radioactive wastes. Pp. 1391–1393.in: Water-Rock Interaction 10 (R. Cidu, editor). A.A. Balkema, Leiden, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Soler, J.M. and Mäder, U.K. (2007) Mineralogical alteration and associated permeability changes induced by a high-pH plume: modeling of a granite core infiltration experiment. Applied Geochemistry, 22, 17–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soler, J.M., Paris, B., Pfingsten, W. and Mäder, U. (2004) Flow and reactive transport modeling in the framework of GTS-HPF. Pp. 983–987.in: Water-Rock Interaction 11 (R.B. Wanty and R.R. Seal, editors). A.A. Balkema, Leiden, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Techer, I., Bartier, D., Boulvais, Ph., Tinseau, E., Suchorski, K., Cabrera, J. and Dauzéres, A. (2012) Tracing interactions between natural argillites and hyper-alkaline fluids from engineered cement paste and concrete: Chemical and isotopic monitoring of a 15-years old deep-disposal analogue. Applied Geochemistry, 27, 1384–1402.Google Scholar
Tinseau, E., Bartier, D., Hassouta, L., Devol-Brown, I. and Stammose, D. (2006) Mineralogical characterization of the Tournemire argillite after in situ reaction with concretes. Waste Management, 26, 789–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, C., Savage, D., Wilson, J. and Walker, C. (2011) Reactive Transport Modelling of the Tournemire Analogue. Quintessa report for the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, QRS-1523A- 1.Google Scholar