Predictive modeling of a simple field matrix diffusion experiment addressing radionuclide transport in fractured rock. Is it so straightforward?

Soler, J. M.*; Neretnieks, I.*; Moreno, L.*; Liu, L.*; Meng, S.*; Svensson, U.*; Iraola, A.*; Ebrahimi, K.*; Trinchero, P.*; Molinero, J.*; Vidstrand, P.*; Deissmann, G.*; ha, J.*; Hokr, M.*; Vetenk, A.*; Voplka, D.*; Gvodik, L.*; Polk, M.*; Trpkoov, D.*; Havlov, V.*; Park, D.-K.*; Ji, S.-H.*; Tachi, Yukio  ; Ito, Tsuyoshi*; Gylling, B.*; Lanyon, G. W.*

The SKB Task Force is an international forum on modelling of groundwater flow and solute transport in fractured rock. The WPDE experiments are matrix diffusion experiments in gneiss performed at the ONKALO underground facility in Finland. Synthetic groundwater containing several conservative and sorbing tracers was injected along a borehole interval. The objective of Task 9A was the predictive modelling of the tracer breakthrough curves from the WPDE experiments. Several teams, using different modelling approaches and codes, participated in this exercise. An important conclusion from this exercise is that the modelling results were very sensitive to the magnitude of dispersion in the borehole opening, which is related to the flow of water. Focusing on the tails of the breakthrough curves, which are more directly related to matrix diffusion and sorption, the results from the different teams were more comparable.