Abstract
The bentonite barrier is an essential part of a safe spent fuel repository in granitic bedrock. The issue of saturation phase erosion of bentonite, caused by groundwater leakages, was approached theoretically and computationally. We evaluated numerically the total mass of eroded bentonite out of a cylindrical erosion channel corresponding to the case of fixed channel radius and purely suction induced free swelling, i.e. the rate swelling and erosion are equal. We observed that eroded mass loss as a function of time increases in log-log scale linearly in the active part of the erosion process, i.e. after the initial transient regime of high swelling and before the final decay towards stable buffer. The slope of the mass loss vs. time varies, but is always between 0.7 and 1.0.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | COMSOL Conference 2010 Paris |
| Subtitle of host publication | User presentations and proceedings |
| Publisher | COMSOL |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-0-9825697-7-1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
| MoE publication type | B3 Non-refereed article in conference proceedings |
Keywords
- bentonite
- model
- erosion