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Performance Assessment of Engineered Barriers Using the Vault Model.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1992

L.H. Johnson  and
D.M. Leneveu
L.H. Johnson
Affiliation:
AECL Research, Whiteshell Laboratories, Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada, R0E 1L0
D.M. Leneveu
Affiliation:
AECL Research, Whiteshell Laboratories, Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada, R0E 1L0
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Abstract

The Vault Model for assessing engineered barrier performance has been developed as part of the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement to be presented to a Federal Environmental Assessment Review Panel reviewing the Canadian nuclear fuel waste disposal concept. The model describes the behaviour of titanium containers, radionuclide release from used fuel, and migration of radionuclides through buffer and backfill materials and into the surrounding geosphere. Vault Model simulations have shown that the release of radionuclides from the engineered barrier system is dominated by the release from the fuel-sheath gap and grain boundaries in used fuel. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses have illustrated how releases from the vault are affected by both the uncertainty in model parameters and the assumptions made in the development of the models. It is likely that the combined effects of a number of conservatisms in the model result in the releases from the engineered barrier system being overpredicted by several orders of magnitude.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 294: Symposium V – Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XVI , 1992 , 689
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1993

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