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Metcalfe, R.*; Benbow, S. J.*; Kawama, Daisuke*; Tachi, Yukio
Science of the Total Environment, 958, p.177690_1 - 177690_17, 2025/01
Uplifting fractured granitic rocks occur in substantial areas of countries such as Japan. A repository site would be selected in such an area only if it is possible to make a safety case, accounting for the changing conditions during uplift. The safety case must include robust arguments that chemical processes in the rocks around the repository will contribute sufficiently to minimise radiological doses to biosphere receptors. To provide confidence in the safety arguments, numerical models need to be sufficiently realistic, but also parameterised conservatively (pessimistically). However, model development is challenging because uplift involves many complex couplings between groundwater flow, chemical reactions between water and rock, and changing rock properties. The couplings would affect radionuclide mobilisation and retardation, by influencing diffusive radionuclide fluxes between groundwater flowing in fractures and effectively immobile porewater in the rock matrix and radionuclide partitioning between water and solid phases, via: (i) mineral precipitation/dissolution; (ii) mineral alteration; and (iii) sorption/desorption. It is difficult to represent all this complexity in numerical models while showing that they are parameterised conservatively. Here we present a modelling approach, illustrated by simulation cases for some exemplar radioelements, to identify realistically conservative process conceptualisations and model parameterisations.
Metcalfe, R.*; Tachi, Yukio; Sasao, Eiji; Kawama, Daisuke*
Science of the Total Environment, 957, p.177375_1 - 177375_17, 2024/12
A safety case for an underground radioactive waste repository must show that groundwater will not in future transport radionuclides from the repository to the near-surface environment (the biosphere) in harmful quantities. Safety cases are developed step-wise throughout a programme to site and develop a repository. At early stages, before a site is selected, safety cases are generic and based on simplified safety assessment models of the disposal system that have conservative parameter values. Later, when site-specific conditions are known, more realistic models are needed for the long-term geo-environmental evolution and their impacts on radionuclide migration/retention. Uplift is one such environmental change, which may be particularly important in countries near active tectonic plate boundaries, such as Japan. Here we review the state of knowledge about how the properties of fractured granitic rocks evolve during uplift, based on studies in Japan. Hence, we present conceptual models and a generic scenario for mass transport and retardation processes in uplifting granitic rocks as a basis for realistic numerical models to underpin safety assessment.
Ichihara, Yoshitaka*; Nakamura, Naohiro*; Moritani, Hiroshi*; Choi, B.; Nishida, Akemi
Frontiers in Built Environment (Internet), 7, p.676408_1 - 676408_14, 2021/06
The objective of this study is the improvement of response evaluations of structures, facilities and equipment in evaluation of three-dimensional seismic behavior of nuclear power plant facilities, by three-dimensional finite element method model, including separation and sliding between the soil and the basement walls. To achieve this, simulation analyses of Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant unit 7 reactor building under the 2007 Niigataken-chuetsu-oki earthquake event were carried out. These simulation analyses consider soil-structure interaction using a three-dimensional finite element method model in which the soil and building are three-dimensionally modeled by the finite element method. It is found that basemat uplift is generated on east side of the basemat edge, and this has an important influence on the results. The importance is evidenced by the difference of local response in soil pressure characteristics beneath the edge of basemat, the soil pressure characteristics along the east side of basement wall and the maximum acceleration response at the west end of the embedded surface. Although, in this particular study, basemat uplift, separation and sliding have only a relatively small influence on the maximum acceleration response of embedded surface and the soil pressure characteristics along the basement walls and beneath the basemat, under strong earthquake motion, these influences can be significant, therefore appropriate evaluation of this effect should be considered.
Nomura, Katsuhiro; Tanikawa, Shinichi*; Amamiya, Hiroki; Yasue, Kenichi
JAEA-Data/Code 2016-015, 49 Pages, 2017/03
JAEA-Data-Code-2016-015.pdf:2.88MB
The uplift of the last hundred thousand years in the Japanese Islands has been acquired mainly using marine and river terraces. We arranged information regarding the uplift in a table. This data is one of the useful information for the development of the investigation technology of uplift and for the research of the landform evolution in Japanese islands.
Metcalfe, R.*; Kawama, Daisuke*; Benbow, S. J.*; Tachi, Yukio
no journal, ,
Klein, L.*; Hardie, S.*; McKinley, I.*; Tachi, Yukio; Shibata, Masahiro; Amano, Yuki; Takase, Hiroyasu*
no journal, ,
The uplift / erosion is treated as a special perturbation scenario for the safety assessment of the geological disposal, due to the Japanese tectonic setting, the impact of uplift must be considered as part of "likely" repository evolution. In an initial study, a simple uplift and erosion scenario was assessed with resultant changes in solubility and sorption of key radionuclides. A special challenge here is development of models and associated databases to quantify the impact of rock mechanical, hydrogeological and bio-geochemical changes on radionuclide migration both in the EBS and in the geosphere. There are great uncertainties with any laboratory studies to investigate the processes involved and therefore natural analogues have great potential here. The paper will list and discuss the key safety-relevant processes and potential analogue studies by considering both data mining of existing knowledge bases and also new projects that are specifically focused on this application.
