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Coupled Process Modeling and Waste-Package Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1992

B. P. Mcgrail and
D. W. Engel
B. P. Mcgrail*
Affiliation:
Pacific Northwest Laboratory, P. 0. Box 999, Richland, WA 99352
D. W. Engel*
Affiliation:
Pacific Northwest Laboratory, P. 0. Box 999, Richland, WA 99352
*
(a) Operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC06-76RLO 1830
(a) Operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC06-76RLO 1830
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Abstract

The interaction of borosilicate waste glasses with water has been studied extensively, and reasonably good models are available that describe the reaction kinetics and solution chemical effects. Unfortunately, these models have not been utilized in performance assessment analyses, except in estimating radionuclide solubilities at the waste form surface. A geochemical model has been incorporated in the AREST code to examine the coupled processes of glass dissolution and transport within the engineered barrier system. Our calculations show that the typical performance assessment analyses using fixed solubilities or constant reaction rate at the waste form surface are not always conservative or realistic predictions of radionuclide release. Varying the transport properties of the waste package materials is shown to produce counterintuitive effects on the release rates of some radionuclides. The use of noncoupled performance assessment models could lead a repository designer to an erroneous conclusion about the advantages of one waste package design or host rock setting over another.

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References

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