Journal
NUCLEAR ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Volume 53, Issue 3, Pages 1041-1048Publisher
KOREAN NUCLEAR SOC
DOI: 10.1016/j.net.2020.08.017
Keywords
Engineered barrier system; Compacted bentonite; Saturation process; Thermal conductivity; Water suction
Categories
Funding
- Nuclear Research and Development Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRF-2017M2A8A5014857]
- Basic Research Project of the National Research Foundation of Korea [2020R1F1A1072379]
- National Research Foundation of Korea [2020R1F1A1072379] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
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The engineered barrier system (EBS) for high-level radioactive waste disposal includes buffer, gap-filling, and backfill materials to prevent radionuclide leakage. Research on the thermal-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) properties of the buffer material in saturated conditions is crucial, leading to the proposal of new measurement and saturation methods.
An engineered barrier system (EBS) for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) is composed of a disposal canister with spent fuel, a buffer material, a gap-filling material, and a backfill material. As the buffer is located in the empty space between the disposal canisters and the surrounding rock mass, it prevents the inflow of groundwater and retards the spill of radionuclides from the disposal canister. Due to the fact that the buffer gradually becomes saturated over a long time period, it is especially important to investigate its thermal-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) properties considering variations of saturated condition. Therefore, this paper suggests a new method of measuring thermal conductivity and water suction for single compacted bentonite at various levels of saturation. This paper also highlights a convenient method of saturating compacted bentonite. The proposed method was verified with a previous method by comparing thermal conductivity and water suction with respect to water content. The relative error between the thermal conductivity and water suction values obtained through the proposed method and the previous method was determined as within 5% for compacted bentonite with a given water content. (c) 2020 Korean Nuclear Society, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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