Optical measurement of the salinity distribution by saltwater intrusion experiment

Oda, Yoshihiro ; Takasu, Tamio*; Sato, Hisashi; Sawada, Atsushi ; Watahiki, Takanori*

Because of the density difference between fresh groundwater and saline groundwater, the groundwater behaves complicated flow. It is well known that the expected barrier functions such as candidate buffer materials and others for high level radioactive waste geological isolation are inhibited by the saline water. The simulations have been required to evaluate the groundwater flow, because the available data by in-situ investigation of the saline and fresh ground water flows is very limited. In the simulation, the complex coupled process of advection-dispersion, seepage flow and density drive flow should be implemented in the simulation codes. The extensive verification studies have been done for modeling and simulation codes until now, but those results were compared only with qualitative experimental data. For the quantitative evaluations, we developed the quantitative measurement technique by optical method for saltwater intrusion, especially for the saltwater concentration distribution in transition zone, on laboratory experiment. We have obtained the quantitative data of the shape of saltwater wedge and saltwater concentration distribution at both transient and steady states.