You are on page 1of 11

NUCLEAR – 2008

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTUAL AND NUMERICAL MODELS


FOR SEMI-GENERIC SITE TO SUPPORT PERFORMANCE
ASSESSMENT FOR CANDU SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL DISPOSAL

PETRE ILIE, ALEXANDRU DANCHIV*, ALICE IONESCU**, VIOREL DEACONU,


GABRIEL GHITA

Subsidiary for Nuclear Research Pitesti


*University of Bucharest Faculty of Geology and Geophysics
**National Agency for Radioactive Waste

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to give essential information on the current status of the studies
developed in the framework of the Research Contract no. T02.10.24 “The development of
numerical models and computer codes in support of siting and performance assessment
studies of geologic repository in crystalline and ingenuous rocks”. The work performed
included groundwater flow and radionuclide transport simulations for the ‘semi-generic’
Veresnia site (Ukraine), development of a near-field release model for spent nuclear fuel
from CANDU reactors and performing a THM analysis for a single canister. For the far-
field model, the conceptual model provided by Ukraine was simulated with the FEFLOW
5.2 code, using a porous medium model with embedded horizontal and vertical discrete
fractures. The disposal concept for CANDU fuel in granite was adapted following a
Canadian concept, and the source term calculation was conducted with the the near-field
transport code GRAPOS, part of the EMOS package. The conductive heat transfer, that did
not include coupled effects, was calculated with the ANSYS code using a detailed model of
the repository system.

Key words: geological repository, performance assessment, source-term calculation,


flow and transport, heat transport

Introduction
The aim of this paper is to assess the performance of the Veresnia site (Ukraine), as potential host
formation for direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel from power plants of CANDU type. The repository
is assumed to be located at a depth of 800 m in the crystalline strata of a layered geological formation.
The Veresnia site is relatively poorly investigated; therefore choice of the values of the flow
parameters was based on all available literature data about composition and structure of rocks, results
of geophysical studies and expert assessments [1]. After contact with groundwater, the radionuclides
disposed in the repository are assumed to be released from the spent fuel elements and transported
through the repository system by advective flow. The radionuclide release rates out of the repository
are calculated by a deterministic method with the module GRAPOS1, version 1.01, of the computer
code package EMOS [ 2]. Radionuclides released from the repository are transported through
geosphere via advective-dispersive groundwater flow. The current study considers only the constant
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

161
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

release of a given concentration of 129I for the entire simulation period. Flow and transport through the
geosphere are simulated with the FEFLOW 5.2 code, considering two different approaches: the host
formation is firstly modelled as a porous media, and then as a continuum porous media, crossed over
by a horizontal and vertical fracture. An uncoupled thermal analysis for a single canister was carried
out with the ANSYS code [ 3] to assess the temperature variations using a heat transfer analysis based
upon transient heat conduction equation.
Model description and input data
Hydrogeological model
The computation is restricted to a 2D cross section of the disposal site (5000 m X 1200 m). The model
is made up by a sedimentary coverture having two aquifers, separated by an aquitard and the granite
layer which is separated by the lower aquifer by a second aquitard. Two layers can be distinguished in
the granite: an upper part, the fractured granite and the lower part, the monolithic granite where the
repository will be located. The main model characteristics as well as the material properties are
presented in the Table 1, while Figure 1 shows the model layout.

Figure 1: Hydrogeological layout of the Veresnia site

Model Thickness Conductivity Effective


Description
layer [m] 10-4 [m/s] porosity
1 90 5 0.15 Upper Aquifer :Quaternary+ Paleogene
2 30 0.002 0.01 Aquitard 1 :Paleogene marls
3 80 5 0.1 Lower aquifer Cretaceous+Jurassic
Second Aquitard (Jurassic clays + weathering
4 70 0.001 0.01
bedrock)
5 270 0.05 0.005 Upper fractured zone of granite
6 700 510-4… 0.002 Monolithic crystalline bedrock
Table 1: Schematisation of hydraulic properties for 2D profile hydrogeological model of Veresnia site
The aim of our model is to analyse the possibilities of migration of the leaked plume from the
repository into the fractured granites. From conservative reasons, it was supposed that the head in both
the fractured and monolithic granites exceeds the head in the sedimentary covers. The same head was
imposed on the boundaries corresponding to the both fractured and monolithic granites. Thus the
eventual upward migration of the plume would be due only to the head difference between the granite
and the sedimentary cover. Although no head data in the granite are available, the 2D vertical model
implies a horizontal flow in both the fractured and monolithic granites. Otherwise, due to the
downgradient in the aquifer system the leaked nuclides will remain in the granites and will eventually
concentrate in the vicinity of the no-flow boundary. The hypothesis concerning the head distribution
along the boundaries are summarized in Table 2. All the three variants were analysed considering a
continuous source having a constant concentration of 100 (arbitrary units) imposed into the nodes
along the whole repository area (350 m x 10 m). The Variant 3 was also analysed by considering the
release of a time variable iodine source (T1/2 =1.57•107 y). In this case the source term in the repository
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

162
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

was in tabulated form of flux and imposed on the corresponding nodes of the repository. Apart the
homogeneous media conditions, each variant was analysed by considering that the repository was
intercepted by a horizontal fracture having hydraulic conductivity Kf = 81.75 x 10-4 m/sec (which
corresponds to a fracture aperture 2b = 0.01 mm), longitudinal dispersivity αL = 50 m, and transversal
dispersivity αT = 0 m. The domain was discretized into a mesh having 79488 isoparametric
quadrilateral elements, with the element size of about 9.0 m. The full upwind technique was used and
the upper limit of the time step was set to 10 years.
Hydraulic head [m]
Layer Left boundary Right boundary
Variant 1 Variant 2 Variant 3 Variant 1 Variant 2 Variant 3
Upper aquifer (Q+P): 155 155 155 140 140 140
Lower aquifer (J+K): 150 150 150 137 137 137
Granite 150 155 152 145 135 136
Table 2: Boundary conditions
Near-field
The Titanium containers with spent fuel are placed centrally in cylindrical emplacement boreholes,
and are surrounded by cylindrical buffer material. The buffer is assumed to enclose the containers
entirely, limiting the contaminant transport to diffusion only. Flow of water around the buffer is
assumed to be possible through the excavation damaged zone (EDZ). The near-field transport
considers radioactive decay, solubility limits, diffusion through the bentonite buffer, and diffusive
release into the advection-dominated flow in the excavation disturbed zone (EDZ) and interconnected
fractures. The source term model (the release rate from the waste package) distinguishes between the
inventory in the gap (instantaneous release), the metallic parts and the fuel matrix (constant
degradation rates of the barriers). Instantaneous failure of all containers after 500 y is assumed for
containers. The repository is designed as a system of horizontal disposal rooms at one level. The
disposal concept for CANDU fuel in granite is adapted following a Canadian concept, as shown in
Figure 2. The repository consists of 40 disposal rooms, hosting 11 280 containers, that represent the
spent fuel 40-years operational arisings from four nuclear CANDU units.
Lateral view of the repository Top view of the repository

0.5
Upper backfill
m
Lower backfill
3.5
m 2.1 m

2.1 m7.5 m
2.0m buffe borehole
r
5.2 m 2.25 containe 30 m
m r
Gap
fill

34 m 200 m
1.24 m
Figure 2: Disposal concept for CANDU SNF in granite.
Near-Field Thermal Analysis
As a first step to assessing coupled THM effects, conductive heat transfer was calculated using a
rather detailed model of the repository system. Heat output from spent nuclear fuel was specified as a
time-dependent function, and temperatures throughout the model domain were calculated. The peak
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

163
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

temperature constraint in the near field is set at 100°C, to account for the thermal constraints imposed
upon the bentonite buffer surrounding the spent fuel containers. In respect to the considered buffer
thermal conductivity, two cases were analyzed. Case 1 would correspond to a dry density of 1.8 Mg.m-
3
and a water content of 7 % for the buffer material (bentonite clay), Case 2 would correspond to a dry
density of 1.6 Mg.m-3 and a water content of 7 % for the buffer material (bentonite-sand mixture) [4].
The model is consistent with the specifications for the proposed repository design [3].
Results and discussion
Hydrogeological model
Distribution of the hydraulic heads
Variant 1: As the Figure 3a shows, the hydraulic head in the case of this variant has two distinct zones.
On the left part of the model the piezometric lines are vertical so that the flow direction is horizontal.
On the right part where the value of imposed head (145 m) exceeds the imposed head on the right
boundary of the J+K aquifer the head lines present a symmetric concavity the axes oh which becomes
a divide line. Consequently a leftward gradient component is created having also a vertical component
which could direct the transport into the fractured granites.
Variant 2 and variant 3: Because the imposed head on the left side of the granite is higher than the
head on the same limit of the J+K aquifer, the hydraulic gradient presents a slight upward component,
even if the main direction remains horizontal (Figure 3b and 3c).

Figure 3: Hydraulic heads for three sets of boundary conditions for the Veresnia site.
Contaminant transport
Variant 1: The radionuclides transport is strongly dominated by the flow characteristics. At the left
part of the model where the hydraulic gradient is horizontal all over the granite mass, the nuclide
plume propagates along the main flow direction during the early period (1000 - 5000 years) (cf.
Figure 4). When a horizontal fracture intersects the repository it becomes a preferential path and an
important part of the released mass is concentrated into and in the very proximity of the fracture. Due
to its large conductivity, the fracture increases the velocity of the transfer process, and the plume is
more extended as compared with the situation when the granite is approached as a porous. After a
longer lapse of time the contaminant is laterally spread either by diffusion or by lateral dispersion
when the mechanical dispersion of the porous matrix was taken into account. In the later case, the
plume is more laterally extended, covering the entire surface of the monolithic granite. This process is
carried on a period of about 5000 years until the plume reaches the distance of 3000 m. During all this
period the radionuclides are confined only into the monolithic granite even if due to the lateral
spreading the plume reaches the lower limit of the fractured granite. After this distance was reached,
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

164
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

the flow is dominated by the leftward gradient. The divide line creates a hydraulic barrier which
prevents the progress of the plume to the right. After 5000 years the upper limit of the monolithic
granite was reached, while after 10000 years the plume presents an upward trend and penetrates
locally into the fractured granites. This effect is emphasized by the vertical fracture which becomes a
preferential vertical flow path which directs the plume upward, into the fractured granites.

Figure 4: Variant 1 - Distribution of a constant concentration source at t =10 000 y.


Variant 2: Due to the vertical gradient component, the plume reaches the upper limit of the monolithic
bedrock even after a small lapse of time of 1000 years (Figure 5) and penetrates into the fractured
granites. On the right limit of the granite the head is with 2 m lower then the imposed head on the
same limit of the J+K aquifer. Consequently, after a 4000 years period the contaminant plume was
split: while its main part propagates horizontally to the right, its upper part remains in the fractured
granites.The horizontal fracture emphasizes the two component of the hydraulic gradient. The released
mass follows two directions: the most important part is transferred along the fracture, due to its large
conductivity, while an upward trend can be seen on the left part of the model. However, because the
most important part of the released mass is transferred along the fracture the plume does not penetrate
into the fractured granite even if the upper limit of the monolithic granite was reached. The horizontal
transfer into the fracture explains also the absence of the plume split which appeared on the left part of
the model when the fracture was not modelled. Due to the preferential path along the fracture the
transfer process is faster as compared with the previous case, when the fracture was neglected.

Figure 5: Variant 2 - Distribution of a constant concentration source for a) porous media (at t = 4000 y),
respectively b) fractured media (at t = 3500 y) .
Variant 3 presents the same relationship between the boundary condition as the variant 2, but in this
case the head on the left granite boundary is only with 2 m higher than the head imposed on the same
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

165
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

boundary of the J+K aquifer. Figure 6 presents the concentration distribution after 4000 years from
the beginning of the releasing process. Due to the upward gradient component the contaminant plume
penetrates slightly the fractured bedrock although the main transfer direction is along the horizontal, in
accordance with the main hydraulic gradient. Due to the smaller head difference, compared to variant
2, the zone of penetration is smaller. The transfer velocity is increased when a longitudinal fracture is
considered and the contaminant is laterally spread by diffusion. When a rather small longitudinal
dispersivity of 50 m of the matrix is taken into account the plume is more extended so that the right
limit is reached after only 2500 years. It is worth to note that the fracture and the dispersion into the
bedrock matrix are superimposed.

Figure 6: Variant 3 - Distribution of a constant concentration source at t = 4000 y, for porous and fractured
media.
Finally, for the variant 3 the transfer of a time-dependent I-129 pulse was simulated. Because of the
large half-period the shape of the contaminant plume is very similar with that resulted for a continuous
source.

Figure 7: Variant 3 - Distribution of a time dependent concentration source (129I) at t = 4000 y, for porous and
fractured media.
Source term
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

166
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

The release of radionuclides from the repository was assessed taking into account two hydrogeological
setups: flow through porous medium and, respectively, flow through an horizontal fracture crossing
the unaltered granite layer. For each case, two repository layouts were considered to account for
different cross-sectional areas of the repository: one in which the main access gallery is parallel to the
flow direction (layout 1), and one with the access gallery perpendicular to it (layout 2). In addition, for
the porous medium approach, a variant case has been considered, to account for the effects of an
alternative matrix dissolution rate/time. Throughout the paper, the labelling respects the two design
variants.
The maximum release rates of most radionuclides from the waste forms (namely, the gap, the metal
parts and the fuel matrix) into the canister volume of dissolution (cf. Figure 8) occur immediately
after container failure (500 years). The peak is due to the instantaneous release from the gap. After t =
560 y, the release is controlled by the matrix release fraction, that contains the most important part of
the inventory, and by solubility limitations. The release rates of some actinides (Th229, Th230, Ra226
and Pa231) continue to rise beyond 560 years due to accumulation from precursors. The release of
Tc99 stops at t = 2.75106 y. C14, Se79 and I129 are exhausted at about t = 2105 y, while the more
soluble Nb94 is depleted at about t = 8105. The release of Ni59 stops at t = 3106 y. Generally,
mobilization stops later than 104 y - the time required for a complete dissolution of the matrix, due to
radionuclides low solubility. Non- and weak-sorbing nuclides (Nb, C, Cl, I, Cs, Ni and Sr) do not
exhibit a plateau in the release rates.
C- 14 CL- 36 CA- 41 NI- 59 NI- 63 SE- 79 RB- 87 SR- 90 ZR- 93
NB- 94 TC- 99 PD-107 AG-108 SN-126 I-129 CS-135 CS-137 SM-147
SM-151 HO-166 CM-246 PU-242 AM-242 CM-247 AM-243 PU-239 PA-231

1.E+11
(a) Flow through porous media - Layout 1
1.E+10
QEDZ = 61.35 m3/y; fnc = 68.86%; TMD = 104 y
1.E+09
1.E+08
1.E+07
Release rate out of the container [Bq/y]

1.E+06
1.E+05
1.E+04
1.E+03
1.E+02
1.E+01
1.E+00
1.E-01
1.E-02
1.E-03
1.E-04
1.E-05
1.E-06
1.E-07
1.E-08
1.E+02 1.E+03 1.E+04 1.E+05 1.E+06 1.E+07 1.E+08
Time [y]
Figure 8: Release rates out of the waste-forms into the container volume of dissolution. Matrix dissolution time
TMD = 104 y (Reference case).
The release rates out of the EDZ zone for the porous and fractured media are shown in Figure 9. The
results are presented for a group of 11280 containers, each containing 1.365 tU. The maximum release
rates from the near-field into the geosphere are dominated by C14, followed by Tc99, Se79 and
Ra226.
The release rates out the near-field into the geosphere from the non- or weak-sorbing nuclides, and
from the non-solubility-limited nuclides C-14, I-129, Se-79, Tc-99, Cs-135, Ni-59, Rb-87 and Ra-226
are reduced by diffusion into the bentonite buffer.
The release rates for the fractured media are slightly higher, compared to those from the porous media
(cf. Figure 10). Although the fracture aperture is very small (0.01 mm), the Darcy velocity is much
higher in fracture than in the porous media, so in the end the water flux through the repository is
higher for the fractured media. That leads to a slight increase of the release rates, and correspondingly,
of the released inventories out of the near-field for those nuclides having larger distribution
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

167
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

coefficients in bentonite. Accordingly, the activities retained in the bentonite at the end of the scenario,
are higher for the porous medium compared to the fractured medium, for the same repository layout.

C- 14 CL- 36 CA- 41 NI- 59 NI- 63 SE- 79 RB- 87 SR- 90 ZR- 93


NB- 94 TC- 99 PD-107 AG-108 SN-126 I-129 CS-135 CS-137 SM-147
SM-151 HO-166 CM-248 PU-244 PU-240 U-236 TH-232 U-232 CM-245
PU-241 AM-241 NP-237 U-233 TH-229 CM-246 PU-242 AM-242 U-238
PU-238 U-234 TH-230 RA-226 CM-247 AM-243 PU-239 U-235 PA-231

1.E+13
(a) Flow through porous media - Layout 1
1.E+12 3 4
QEDZ = 61.35 m /y; fnc = 68.86%; TMD = 10 y
1.E+11

1.E+10
Release rate out of the EDZ [Bq/y]

1.E+09

1.E+08

1.E+07

1.E+06

1.E+05

1.E+04

1.E+03

1.E+02

1.E+01
1.E+02 1.E+03 1.E+04 1.E+05 1.E+06 1.E+07 1.E+08
Time [y]

1,0E+13
(b) Flow through fractured media - Layout 1
1,0E+12 QEDZ = 42.9 m3 /y; fnc = 30.4%

1,0E+11

1,0E+10
Release rate out of the EDZ [Bq/y]

1,0E+09

1,0E+08

1,0E+07

1,0E+06

1,0E+05

1,0E+04

1,0E+03

1,0E+02

1,0E+01
1,E+02 1,E+03 1,E+04 1,E+05 1,E+06 1,E+07 1,E+08
Time [y]

Figure 9: Release rates of fission and activation products from the near-field into the geosphere: (a) porous
media; (b) fractured media .
The release rates out of the repository depend linearly of the groundwater flow crossing the repository
area (cf. Figure 10). An increase in the water flux through the repository determines a faster removal
of the contaminants from the buffer surface, since the transport through the buffer is mainly due to
diffusion and it is not subjected to solubility limitation. The effect of sorption is a decrease in the peak
and a broadening of the release rates. For all the cases considered the activities released from the
repository for the fission products and for some actinides (Pu-244, Cm247) show no difference, given
the large simulation time (T = 1.1∙107 years) compared to their half-lives. For the rest of the nuclides,
the released activities and release rates are proportional to the groundwater flow. In all the situations
considered, at the end of the scenario, all radionuclides in the container were mobilized, due to
completion of the fuel and cladding dissolution. Contaminants are either contained in the buffer
(especially highly sorbed actinides and cladding activation products), or already left the near-field.
The simulation showed that a first effect of increasing of the matrix dissolution time (TMD = 3.8∙108 y)
is manifested through the decrease of the release rates out of the container. Radionuclide release,
mainly controlled by matrix dissolution, is prolonged and the inventory is further reduced due to
radioactive decay. At the end of the simulation time, there are still immobilized radionuclides in the
container.
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

168
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

1.E+12

1.E+11
1.E+10

1.E+09
1.E+08
1.E+07
Activity flown out at scenario end [y]

1.E+06
1.E+05
1.E+04
fracV1
1.E+03 fracV2
1.E+02 porV1
porV2
1.E+01

1.E+00
1.E-01

1.E-02
1.E-03

1.E-04

1.E-05
1.E-06

1.E-07
4 6 1 9 3 9 7 0 3 4 9 7 8 6 9 5 7 7 1 6 8 4 0 6 2 2 5 1 1 7 3 9 6 2 2 8 8 4 0 6 7 3 9 5 1
- 1 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 9 - 9 - 9 10 10 12 12 13 13 14 15 16 24 24 24 23 23 23 24 24 24 23 23 22 24 24 24 23 23 23 23 22 24 24 23 23 23
C CL CA NI NI SE RB SR ZR NB TC D- G- N- I- S- S- M- M- O- M- U- U- U- H- U- M- U- M- P- U- H- M- U- M- U- U- U- H- A- M- M- U- U- A-
P A S C C S S H C P P T C P A N T C P A P T R C A P P
Nuclide

Figure 10: Activity [Bq] flown out from the near-field at the end of the scenario.

1.E+12
1.E+10
1.E+08
1.E+06
1.E+04
Mobile inventory at the end of the scenario [Bq]

1.E+02
1.E+00
1.E-02
1.E-04
1.E-06
1.E-08 porV1
1.E-10 porV1_Tdis
1.E-12
1.E-14
1.E-16
1.E-18
1.E-20
1.E-22
1.E-24
1.E-26
1.E-28
1.E-30
7
O 1

P- 1

U 42

-2 3
R - 79

B- 3

7
N 41

7
ZR- 90

TC 94

I 26

S 5
7

-2 4
U 40

U 7

-2 2

U 38

M 6

U 39
C - 14

N 59
SE- 63

-1 8

S 9

M 6

-2 6
U 32
M 2

3
M 9

-2 8

4
A 0

-2 5
31
C - 36

SM-14
H -15

N -24

PU-24
PU-24

PU-24

PU-24

AM 24
SR- 8

N -9

PD - 9

C -12

C -22

R -23
AG-10
SN-10

C -13
SM-13

PU-24

AM-24

23

AM 24

C -22
C 16

TH-23

C -23

TH-23

PU-23

TH-23

PA 3 2
A-
I-

-
-

-
B
C

I
L

Nuclide

Figure 11: Mobilized inventory [Bq] in container at the end of the scenario.
The release from the container of some long lived radionuclide continues after the simulation time
(1.1∙107 y), which is below the matrix lifetime. As a consequence, the release rates out of the bentonite
buffer, and consequently, the released activity decrease, compared to the shorter matrix lifetime case
(cf. Figure 11). The decrease can be extreme, of several orders of magnitude, especially for shorter-
lived radionuclides, and/or for those highly sorbed in the bentonite like U, Pu, Np, Am and Cm. For
the case of longer matrix dissolution, the mobilized inventories in the container are lower, and the
activities retained in the buffer are higher compared to the case where matrix dissolves quickly.
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

169
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

For the actinides, longer matrix dissolution may result in peaks of the release rates delayed in time and
reduced in amplitude, as a consequence of the weighting between the build-up from the parent
nuclides and radioactive decay. The decrease of the maximum release rates vary between one to three
orders in magnitude.
Near-Field Thermal Analysis
Figure 12 presents an example of temperature distribution throughout the model, at the moment when
maximum temperature is reached in buffer, for case 1.

Figure 12: Temperature distribution after 36 years (maximum temperature reached) - Case 1
Conclusions
From the results presented in the precedent chapter, several characteristics that limit the contaminant
release rates can be emphasized, namely a compact repository layout, slow groundwater movement in
the geological formation, and reducing chemical environments that favour a slower matrix dissolution.
For the same repository layout and simulation time, it has been shown that the contaminant release
rates for the fractured medium are higher than for the porous medium.
If the chemical environment is favourable to faster waste-form dissolution, then other barriers (be it
engineered, like the buffer or backfill, or geological) are ranking higher in controlling the release of
contaminants and, ultimately, in guaranteeing the safety of the disposal concept.
The modelling of the temperature field confirmed an important margin of safety for buffer maximum
temperature (about 74 °C for the most conservative case considered) in respect to the design limit of
100 °C. This fact may yield the idea that a further optimization of the repository design could be
performed in order to reduce the repository dimensions.
The model may be improved, by including the gaps that may exist in the EBS region although the low
heat flux from spent CANDU fuel canisters (after at least 40 years interim storage) is unlikely to
significantly modify the maximum computed temperatures.
References
[ 1] Data Report, 2006. Description of Veresnia Site (Ukraine) and some Hydrogeological Properties
of Crystalline Rocks (Data Report by Research Contract # UKR13374.

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

170
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
NUCLEAR – 2008
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

[ 2] Storck, R.; Buhmann, D; Hirsekorn, R.-P.; Kühle, T.; Lührmann, L.: Das Programmpaket EMOS
zur Analyse der Langzeitsicherheit eines Endlagers für radioaktive Abfälle. Version 5.
Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) mbH, GRS-122, Braunschweig 1996.
[ 3] ANSYS Release 7.1, ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg, PA, 2003
[ 4] H12: Project to Establish the Scientific and Technical Basis for HLW Disposal in Japan,
Supporting Report 2: "Repository Design and Engineering Technology", Japan Nuclear Cycle
Development Institute, Japan, 2000
[5] Danchiv A., Ionescu A., Report on the IAEA’s Coordinated Research Project: Use of numerical
models in support of site characterization and performance assessment studies of geologic
repositories – T2.10.24. Far and near field simulations (preliminary report), Romanian Authority
for Nuclear Activities – Subsidiary of Nuclear Research, Pitesti, Romania, 2006

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

171
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

You might also like