1. Introduction The siting of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is a highly controversial issue in most countries. So far, Finland [6; 9] and Sweden have been exceptions; for reviews see Sjöberg [13; 15]. The corporation responsible for finding a site and building a repository for SNF in Sweden, SKB, managed to find two promising host communities in 2001: Östhammar and Oskarshamn, two small communities ...

This paper presents an analysis of present and future hydrological conditions at the Forsmark site in Sweden, which has been proposed as the site for a geological repository for spent nuclear fuel. Forsmark is a coastal site that changes in response to shoreline displacement. In the considered time frame (until year 10 000 AD), the hydrological system will be affected by landscape succession as...

Nuclear accidents that lead to melting of a reactor core create heterogeneous materials containing hundreds of radionuclides, many with short half-lives. The long-lived fission products and transuranium elements within damaged fuel remain a concern for millennia. Currently, accurate fundamental models for the prediction of release rates of radionuclides from fuel, especially in contact with wat...

Abstract During recent decades, argillaceous sedimentary formations have been studied as potential host for the geological disposal of long-living and heat-emitting radioactive waste—Boom Clay in Belgium Opalinus Brown Dogger Switzerland. A significant issue long-term performance these rocks concerns generation transport gases. The pressure resulting from gas an almost impermeable medium near f...

Bentonites are commonly proposed for use in the geological disposal of high heat generating radioactive wastes. Repository designs include bentonite as a buffer to occupy void space around waste canisters because favourable properties it can exhibit that enhance isolation and containment functionality repository. Many repository concepts introduce small voids within is incorporated individual b...

The radiation doses to humans resulting from a potential release of radionuclides from a geological repository for long-lived waste are assessed over tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. Ingestion is expected to be the major exposure pathway, and the group with the highest exposures will be those that consume the most contaminated food. In this paper, we characterize the group of indivi...

The instant release fraction of a spent nuclear fuel is a matter of concern in the performance assessment of a deep geological repository since it increases the radiological risk. Corrosion studies of two different spent nuclear fuels were performed using bicarbonate water under oxidizing conditions to study their instant release fraction. From each fuel, cladded segments and powder samples obt...

Radioactive waste disposal, as the final step of open nuclear fuel cycle, is an important process to protect humans and environment from harmful effects ionising radiation. Approaching construction geological repository, understanding predictability behavior engineered barrier material becomes more than ever. Therefore, a number research studies are being focused on experimental numerical analy...

A three-dimensional unsaturated-zone numerical model has been developed to simulate flow and distribution of moisture, gas and heat at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, a potential repository site for high-level radioactive waste. The model takes into account the simultaneous flow dynamics of liquid water, vapor, air and heat in the highly heterogeneous, fractured porous rock in the Ž . unsaturated zone ...

A model coupling a three dimensional gas liquid compositional Darcy flow and a one dimensional compositional free gas flow is presented. The coupling conditions at the interface between the gallery and the porous medium account for the molar normal fluxes continuity for each component, the gas liquid thermodynamical equilibrium, the gas pressure continuity and the gas and liquid molar fractions...