On thermohydrologic conditions near high‐level nuclear wastes emplaced in partially saturated fractured tuff: 1. Simulation studies with explicit consideration of fracture effects

Pruess, Karsten; Wang, J. S. Y.; Tsang, Yvonne

doi:10.1029/wr026i006p01235

Cited by 62 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Because very little is known at present about fracture capillary pressures, we consider two cases which are intended to illustrate alternative possible system behavior. Following Pruess et al [1990a], fracture capillary pressure f'ct is parameterized by a simple linear relationship (14) which is constructed so that Pcm (0) =Pet (0) and Pet (1) = f'ct(l) = 0. Note the Pet = 0 for Scril >Strf, so liquid can be mobile in the fractures for a wide range of S1m values.…”

Section: Examples Of F::m (S 1 M) and F'ct (S 1 T) Curves Are Shown Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

A similarity solution for two‐phase water, air, and heat flow near a linear heat source in a porous medium

Doughty¹,

Pruess²

1992

J. Geophys. Res.

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Placement of a heat source in a partially saturated geologic medium causes strongly coupled thermal and hydrologic behavior. To study this problem, a recently developed semianalytical solution for two‐phase flow of water and heat in a porous medium has been extended to include an air component and to incorporate several physical effects that broaden its range of applicability. The problem considered is the placement of a constant‐strength linear heat source in an infinite homogeneous medium with uniform initial conditions. Under these conditions the governing partial differential equations in radial distance r and time t reduce to ordinary differential equations through the introduction of a similarity variable η = r/t1/2. The resulting equations are coupled and nonlinear, necessitating a numerical integration. The similarity solution developed here is used to investigate various physical phenomena related to partially saturated flow in low‐permeability rock, such as vapor pressure lowering, pore level phase change effects, and an effective continuum representation of fractured/porous media. Application to several illustrative problems arising in the context of high‐level nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, indicates that fluid flow, phase changes, and latent heat transfer may have a significant impact on conditions at the repository.

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Section: Examples Of F::m (S 1 M) and F'ct (S 1 T) Curves Are Shown Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

A similarity solution for two‐phase water, air, and heat flow near a linear heat source in a porous medium

Doughty¹,

Pruess²

1992

J. Geophys. Res.

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“…There is a long record of mathematical modeling studies devoted to the prediction of the future thermal-hydrological conditions in the unsaturated environment [Nitao et al, 1992;Tsang, 1993, 1994;Pruess et al, 1984Pruess et al, , 1985Pruess et al, , 1988Pruess et al, , 1990aPruess, 1987, 1989]. Typically, these studies have demonstrated that a large, superheated dry rock region will form for several thousand years at Yucca Mountain, and that during this period, infiltrating liquid water is not expected to contact waste packages.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

TH{_}PULSE: Program for Calculating Infiltration of Episodic Liquid Fingers in Superheated Rock Fractures - Theory, User's Manual and Sample Applications

Birkhölzer¹

2002

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This report describes the code TH_PULSE developed at the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The code handles gravity-driven flow of episodic infiltration events entering above-boiling rock-temperature regions. Such temperature conditions are expected, for example, after emplacement of heat-generating nuclear waste in underground repositories. Complex fluid-flow and heat-transfer phenomena occur, as the infiltrating water is subject to vigorous boiling from the hot rock. A new efficient semi-analytical method is presented herein that simulates such phenomena. It is assumed that flow forms in localized preferential flow paths (referred to as "fingers").The first section of this report gives the conceptual and mathematical background for the solution scheme. The second section is a user's manual for TH_PULSE, providing all information required to run the code, including a detailed description of the input and output files. In the third section, the new solution scheme is applied to several test cases. Sample simulations are performed for conditions representative of the potential nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. A brief summary is given in Section 4.-IV -INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.-V -

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“…Heat pipes are also expected in the vicinity of the geologic repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada (Pruess et al, 1990a(Pruess et al, , 1990b. Determining the magnitude of vapor-liquid counterflow in a heat pipe is relevant to the performance of this repository because the temperature and relative humidity close to the waste packages-important parameters for canister corrosion-are influenced by the relative rates of conductive and convective heat transfer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Temperature-Profile Method for Estimating Flow Processes in Geologic Heat Pipes

Birkhölzer¹

2005

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Above-boiling temperature conditions, as encountered, for example, in geothermal reservoirs and in geologic repositories for the storage of heat-producing nuclear wastes, may give rise to strongly altered liquid and gas flow processes in porous subsurface environments. The magnitude of such flow perturbation is extremely hard to measure in the field. We therefore propose a simple temperature-profile method that uses high-resolution temperature data for deriving such information. The energy that is transmitted with the vapor and water flow creates a nearly isothermal zone maintained at about the boiling temperature, referred to as a heat pipe. Characteristic features of measured temperature profiles, such as the differences in the gradients inside and outside of the heat pipe regions, are used to derive the approximate magnitude of the liquid and gas fluxes in the subsurface, for both steady-state and transient conditions.-1 -1.

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On thermohydrologic conditions near high‐level nuclear wastes emplaced in partially saturated fractured tuff: 1. Simulation studies with explicit consideration of fracture effects

Cited by 62 publications

References 28 publications

A similarity solution for two‐phase water, air, and heat flow near a linear heat source in a porous medium

A similarity solution for two‐phase water, air, and heat flow near a linear heat source in a porous medium

TH{_}PULSE: Program for Calculating Infiltration of Episodic Liquid Fingers in Superheated Rock Fractures - Theory, User's Manual and Sample Applications

A Temperature-Profile Method for Estimating Flow Processes in Geologic Heat Pipes

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