粘土の透水係数測定へのトランジェントパルス法の適用

Application of transient pulse method to permeability measurement for clay

加藤 昌治*; 奈良 禎太*; 岡崎 勇樹*; 河野 勝宣*; 佐藤 稔紀  ; 佐藤 努*; 高橋 学*

Kato, Masaji*; Nara, Yoshitaka*; Okazaki, Yuki*; Kono, Masanori*; Sato, Toshinori; Sato, Tsutomu*; Takahashi, Manabu*

放射性廃棄物の地層処分においては、岩盤を天然バリアとして使用する。このことから、低透水性の岩盤やき裂を充填している粘土の存在は、より好ましい環境を提供すると考えられる。室内での透水係数の測定方法のうち、トランジェントパルス法は低透水性の材料の透水係数測定に有効であるが、粘土に適用された事例は無く、かつ、そのままの方法・手順では適用が困難である。このため、供試体の下流側の圧力を下げる場合で透水係数を求める方法を提案し、変水位法で得られた値と比較して問題ないことを確認した。

To ensure the safe geological disposal of radioactive wastes, it is important to determine the permeability of clays. The transient pulse test is suitable to apply to the low permeability materials, because it takes relatively short term to determine the permeability. Usually we increase the upstream pore pressure in the measurement with the transient pulse test. However, it is impossible to determine the permeability of clay in this procedure because of the increase of pore pressure. Therefore, the transient pulse test has never been applied to the determination of permeability of clays. In this study, we tried to apply the transient pulse test to a clay obtained in Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory to determine the permeability with decreasing the downstream pore pressure. It was clarified that the transient pulse test with decreasing downstream pore pressure is appropriate from the measurements of granite and sandstone. It was shown that the permeability of a clay was determined by the transient pulse test with decreasing the downstream pore pressure, which agreed with the permeability determined from the falling head test. The measurement time of the transient pulse test is much shorter than that of the falling head test. It is concluded that the transient pulse test is appropriate for the determination of the permeability of clays.