A study on the risk of environmental contamination in a deep geological radioactive waste repository

What is it about?

In a deep geological nuclear waste repository, the corrosion reactions between the metallic containers and the ground water may lead to important quantities of gaseous hydrogen. If trapped in the rock pores, the gas pressure may rise considerably and cause the damage of the surrounding rock formation, which increases the risk of radioactive element leakage and environment contamination. This paper presents a modelling approach to efficiently study this phenomena. The methodology was applied to a case study and showed promising results.

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Why is it important?

Using a parametric study on the quantity of the produced hydrogen, we provide practical graphs, such as the the damage initiation time and the extent of the damaged zone with respect to the applied flow rate. This parametric study could be extended to the different influencing parameters like the storing cells dimensions and the rock permeability, and could be used to assist the decision making about the safety of a radioactive waste repository.

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