Coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical experiment at Kamaishi mine technical note 11-96-04; Fundamental properties of bentonite OT-9607

Fujita, Tomoo ; Chijimatsu, Masakazu; Suzuki, Hideaki*; Matsumoto, Kazuhiro*; Ishikawa, Hirohisa

It is an important part of the near field performance assessment of nuclear waste disposal to evaluate coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (T-H-M) phenomena, e.g., thermal effects on groundwater flow through rock matrix and water seepage into the buffer material, the generation of swelling pressure of the buffer material, and thermal stresses potentially affecting porosity and fracture apertures of the rock. An in-situ T-H-M experiment named 'Engineered Barrier Experiment' has been conducted at the Kamaishi Mine, of which host rock is granodiorite, in order to establish conceptual models of the coupled T-H-M processes and to build confidence in mathermatical models and computer codes. We used the BENTONITE OT-9607 as a buffer material. This is the special order goods for this experiment and the granulated bentonite before final crush of KUNIGEL V1. This note describes the reason for using this material and the fundamental properties.