Multiscale Thermohydrologic Model Supporting the Total System Performance Assessment for the Proposed Repository at Yucca Mountain
Abstract
The MultiScale ThermoHydrologic Model (MSTHM) is used in the total system performance assessment (TSPA) for the proposed nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The MSTHM uses the Nonisothermal Unsaturated Flow and Transport (NUFT) code to represent thermal-hydrologic (TH) processes occurring at scales from a few tens of centimeters around individual waste packages and emplacement drifts (tunnels) all the way to the kilometer scale for heat flow through the mountain. The MSTHM is used to predict the anticipated range of TH conditions within emplacement drifts and adjoining host rock. To be defensible, the range in predicted TH conditions must address the influence of the variability and uncertainty of engineered- and natural-system parameters that significantly influence those conditions. Parameter-sensitivity analyses show that the most important natural-system parameters are host-rock thermal conductivity and percolation flux through the repository. These analyses show that the key engineered-system parameter is the waste-package-to-waste- package variability in heat output. The range in TH conditions is also influenced by the "edge-cooling" effect, where waste packages closer to the repository edge cool more quickly than those closer to the repository center. To account for this effect, the MSTHM represents the geometric details of the repository layout. Improvements have also been made to how the MSTHM incorporates hydrostratigraphic and percolation-flux data from the Unsaturated Zone Flow Model, which supports ambient flow and transport simulations for TSPA. Other improvements allow more parameter sensitivity cases to be investigated. Twelve cases are analyzed, including four percolation-flux scenarios (10-, 30-, 50- and 90-percentile) and three host-rock thermal-conductivities (10- percentile, mean, and 90-percentile). Using the results of stochastic analyses, weighting factors are applied to the twelve cases. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48. Sandia is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUFM.H51F0850B
- Keywords:
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- 1829 Groundwater hydrology;
- 1846 Model calibration (3333);
- 1847 Modeling