Development and validation of a fracture model for the granite rocks at Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory, Japan

Kalinina, E. A.*; Hadgu, T.*; Wang, Y.*; Ozaki, Yusuke  ; Iwatsuki, Teruki  

The Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory is located in the Tono area (Central Japan). Its main purpose is providing a scientific basis for the research and development of technologies needed for deep geological disposal of radioactive waste in fractured crystalline rocks. The current work is focused on the experiments in the research tunnel (500 m depth). The collected tunnel and borehole data were shared with the participants of DEvelopment of COupled models and their VALidation against EXperiments (DECOVALEX) project. This study describes how these data were used to (1) develop the fracture model of the granite rocks around the research tunnel and (2) validate the model.