Texture modeling of hydrated montmorillonite for characterization of bentonite buffer materials

Kimoto, Kazushi*; Kawamura, Katsuyuki*; Makino, Hitoshi ; Takayama, Yusuke  

Bentonite is being considered as a buffer material for the geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste. To ensure the long-term reliability of the buffer material, the properties of hydrated montmorillonite, the main component of bentonite, must be well understood. However, the deformation and mass transport properties of bentonite are affected by the nanoscale porous structure created by the aggregation system of hydrated montmorillonite. Therefore, it is important to know not only the properties of montmorillonite on a single crystal scale, but also the microstructure formed by the aggregate system. In this presentation, we will report on a method for modeling the microstructure based on coarse-grained molecular dynamics (coarse-grained MD), which has been developed based on this perspective.