The effects of infiltration on the thermo-hydrologic behavior of the potential repository at Yucca Mountain (original) (raw)
1997, Computing in Civil Engineering
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2013
Exposures of altered rock that have been thought to form by recent discharge of water from depth were examined to address a concern that hydrothermal processes could compromise the isolation capability of a potential high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain The suspected hot-spring and hydrothermal-vent deposits are more likely the products of infiltration of meteoric water into newly deposited and still-hot pyroclastic flows>12 Myr ago. INTRODUCIION The possibility of radionuclide release by surface-discharging hydrothermal systems has become an issue for the potential high-level nuclear waste repository site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada (Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project (YMP), managed by the U.S. Department of Energy). Rising water, moving through a repository and emerging at the surface, could provide transport of radionuclides to the accessible environment. For this reason, an effort has been made to identify and study surficial features characteristic o...
Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, 2003
We report results from a multi-scale thermohydrologic modeling study for two alternative thermal-operating modes for the potential repository system recently analyzed by the Yucca Mountain Project. These include a Higher-Temperature Operating Mode (HTOM), which results in a localized boiling zone around each emplacement drift, and a Lower-Temperature Operating Mode (LTOM), which always maintains sub-boiling temperatures throughout the repository. The HTOM places all waste packages nearly end to end, making the lineal power density greater than in the LTOM. The lower lineal power density in the LTOM was achieved by placing some waste packages farther apart (which results in a larger repository footprint), and through an increased reliance on preclosure ventilation to remove the waste-package-generated heat. We focus on temperature T and relative humidity RH at the waste-package and drift-wall surfaces, and on in-drift evaporation. In general, HTOM temperatures are greater than corresponding LTOM temperatures, exhibit similar spatial variability and have a stronger dependence on infiltration flux. The duration of RH reduction on waste packages is similar for the LTOM and HTOM. A major difference between the LTOM and HTOM is the lower waste-package temperature at any given value of waste-package RH for the LTOM. Waste-package temperatures in the LTOM, by design, remain below f 85 jC; the absence of RH reduction arising from host-rock dryout causes waste-package RH to remain above about 40%. The HTOM waste packages experience higher temperatures and correspondingly lower RH conditions as a result of RH reduction arising from host-rock dryout. For most of the repository area, the HTOM delays the potential onset of gravity-driven seepage compared to the LTOM (as indicated by the duration of boiling at the drift wall). Boiling conditions in the HTOM also delays the onset of capillary-driven seepage into the granular invert, causing the HTOM to have less evaporation in the 0169-7722/02/$ -see front matter D invert during the first 800 -1500 years than the LTOM; subsequent evaporation rates are higher in the HTOM, due to the higher power density. D
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