Seepage into drifts with mechanical degradation.

Seepage into drifts in unsaturated tuff is an important issue for the long-term performance of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Drifts in which waste packages will be emplaced are subject to degradation in the form of rockfall from the drift ceiling, induced by stress-relief, seismic, or thermal effects. The objective of this study is to calculate seepage rates, for various drift-degradation scenarios and for different values of percolation flux, in the Topopah Spring middle nonlithophysal (Tptpmn) and the Topopah Spring lower lithophysal (Tptpll) units at Yucca Mountain. Seepage calculations are conducted by (1) defining a heterogeneous drift-scale permeability model with field data, (2) selecting calibrated parameters associated with the Tptpmn and Tptpll units, and (3) simulating seepage, based on detailed degraded-drift profiles obtained from a separate rock mechanics engineering analysis. The simulation results indicate (1) that the seepage threshold (i.e., the percolation flux at which seepage first occurs) is not significantly changed by drift degradation and (2) the degradation-induced increase in seepage above the threshold is influenced probably more by the shape of the cavity created by rockfall than by rockfall volume.