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Modeling Seepage into Heated Waste Emplacement Tunnels in Unsaturated Fractured Rock

Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, 1 Cyclotron Road, MS 90-1116, Berkeley, CA 94720

View larger version (63K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Schematic of expected near-drift thermal-hydrological processes in response to repository heating (not to scale).

View larger version (47K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Schematic cross section of Yucca Mountain showing the geometry of the model domain (not to scale). Close-up view shows discretization of drift vicinity in the thermal seepage model. The local coordinate system has its origin (x = 0, z = 0) at the center of the drift.

View larger version (11K): [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Thermal load of the reference mode as a function of time. Time zero represents the time of emplacement of the radioactive waste.

View larger version (37K): [in a new window]   Fig. 4. Rock temperature at the drift wall for different percolation flux multiplication factors and reference mode thermal load. For each scenario, the temperature histories in all gridblocks along the drift perimeter are depicted in the same color. Heat-pipe signatures can be observed as temperature plateaus at boiling temperature (96°C at Yucca Mountain elevation).

View larger version (28K): [in a new window]   Fig. 5. Rock temperature at the drift wall for different thermal loads and a flux multiplication factor of 10. For each scenario, the temperature histories in all gridblocks along the drift perimeter are depicted in the same color.

View larger version (73K): [in a new window]   Fig. 6. Fracture saturation (flooded contours), temperature (contour lines), and liquid flux vectors for flux multiplication factor 10 and reference thermal load at 100 yr after waste emplacement. The close-up view shows liquid saturation in the immediate drift vicinity.

View larger version (74K): [in a new window]   Fig. 7. Fracture (flooded contours), temperature (contour lines), and liquid flux vectors for flux multiplication factor 10 and reference thermal load at 500 yr after waste emplacement. The close-up view shows liquid saturation in the immediate drift vicinity.

View larger version (76K): [in a new window]   Fig. 8. Fracture (flooded contours), temperature (contour lines), and liquid flux vectors for flux multiplication factor 10 and reference thermal load at 1000 yr after waste emplacement. The close-up view shows liquid saturation in the immediate drift vicinity.

View larger version (30K): [in a new window]   Fig. 9. Fracture liquid flux vectors for flux multiplication factor 10 and reference thermal load at different times after emplacement. Solid lines show downward fluxes along a vertical line above the drift crown for a simulation with homogeneous fracture properties (drift crown is at z = 2.75 m). In comparison, the scattered symbols show results from a heterogeneous simulation at 100 yr, giving the flux magnitude in all grid elements above z = 0 m as a function of radial distance from the center of the drift (the drift wall is at r = 2.75 m).

View larger version (30K): [in a new window]   Fig. 10. Evolution of fracture saturation for flux multiplication factor 10 and reference thermal load. Dashed lines show saturation values in all gridblocks along the drift perimeter for the simulation with heterogeneous fracture properties. In comparison, the solid line gives results from a homogenous simulation, showing the fracture saturation extracted at the drift crown.

View larger version (24K): [in a new window]   Fig. 11. Evolution of thermal seepage percentage for reference thermal mode and flux multiplication factor 10.

View larger version (23K): [in a new window]   Fig. 12. Evolution of thermal seepage percentage for reference thermal mode and flux multiplication factor 10 using a different realization of the stochastic fracture permeability field.

View larger version (25K): [in a new window]   Fig. 13. Evolution of thermal seepage percentage for different thermal modes and flow focusing factor 10.

View larger version (26K): [in a new window]   Fig. 14. Evolution of thermal seepage percentage for reference thermal mode and flux multiplication factor 20.