Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T14:35:38.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Novel and Practicable Approach to Modeling Radionuclide Transport Through Heterogenous Geological Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

J.W. Schneider ,
P. Zuidema ,
P.A. Smith ,
P. Gribi ,
M. Hugi  and
M. Niemeyer
J.W. Schneider
Affiliation:
Nagra, Switzerland
P. Zuidema
Affiliation:
Nagra, Switzerland
P.A. Smith
Affiliation:
Safety Assessment Management Limited, UK
P. Gribi
Affiliation:
Colenco Power Engineering AG, Switzerland
M. Hugi
Affiliation:
Colenco Power Engineering AG, Switzerland
M. Niemeyer
Affiliation:
Colenco Power Engineering AG, Switzerland
Get access

Abstract

This paper describes a novel approach to modelling radionuclide transport through a heterogeneous geological medium. It is assumed that a statistical description of the heterogeneity can be formulated. The approach then essentially consists of three steps: (i) sampling of a large number of potential transport pathways (15‘000 in this example), covering the ranges of properties; (ii) grouping of these pathways in a manner which reflects their importance for radionuclide transport into a small number of “legs” with appropriately averaged properties; (iii) modelling geosphere transport processes in these legs. It is demonstrated that the number of legs required to represent conservatively, but without excessive conservatism, all the transport pathways is small (5 in this example). This result is important for safety assessment, where many different parameter variations may need to be considered and where computational efficiency is often a vital issue.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 506: Symposium – Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XXI , 1997 , 821
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1 Schlussbericht zu den geologischen Oberflichenuntersuchungen am Wellenberg, Nagra Technischer Bericht NTB 96-01, Nagra, Wettingen, Switzerland (to be published 1997).Google Scholar
2 Bericht zur Langzeitsicherheit des Endlagers SMA am Standort Wellenberg, Nagra Technischer Bericht NTB 94-06, Nagra, Wettingen, Switzerland (1994).Google Scholar
3 , Kristallin-I Safety Assessment Report, Nagra Technical Report NTB 93-22, Nagra, Wettingen, Switzerland (1994).Google Scholar
4 Barten, W. and Robinson, P.C., in Hydroinformatics‘96, edited by Muller, A. (A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, 1996) pp. 541–548.Google Scholar
5 Dverstorp, B., Smith, P.A. and Zuidema, P., Why is variability important for performance assessment and what are its consequences for site characterisation and repository design?, to appear in the proceedings of the 2nd GEOTRAP workshop, Paris, France, 9-11 June 1997.Google Scholar