TY - JOUR
T1 - Modeling transient heat transfer in nuclear waste repositories
AU - Yang, Shaw Yang
AU - Yeh, Hund-Der
PY - 2009/9/30
Y1 - 2009/9/30
N2 - The heat of high-level nuclear waste may be generated and released from a canister at final disposal sites. The waste heat may affect the engineering properties of waste canisters, buffers, and backfill material in the emplacement tunnel and the host rock. This study addresses the problem of the heat generated from the waste canister and analyzes the heat distribution between the buffer and the host rock, which is considered as a radial two-layer heat flux problem. A conceptual model is first constructed for the heat conduction in a nuclear waste repository and then mathematical equations are formulated for modeling heat flow distribution at repository sites. The Laplace transforms are employed to develop a solution for the temperature distributions in the buffer and the host rock in the Laplace domain, which is numerically inverted to the time-domain solution using the modified Crump method. The transient temperature distributions for both the single- and multi-borehole cases are simulated in the hypothetical geological repositories of nuclear waste. The results show that the temperature distributions in the thermal field are significantly affected by the decay heat of the waste canister, the thermal properties of the buffer and the host rock, the disposal spacing, and the thickness of the host rock at a nuclear waste repository.
AB - The heat of high-level nuclear waste may be generated and released from a canister at final disposal sites. The waste heat may affect the engineering properties of waste canisters, buffers, and backfill material in the emplacement tunnel and the host rock. This study addresses the problem of the heat generated from the waste canister and analyzes the heat distribution between the buffer and the host rock, which is considered as a radial two-layer heat flux problem. A conceptual model is first constructed for the heat conduction in a nuclear waste repository and then mathematical equations are formulated for modeling heat flow distribution at repository sites. The Laplace transforms are employed to develop a solution for the temperature distributions in the buffer and the host rock in the Laplace domain, which is numerically inverted to the time-domain solution using the modified Crump method. The transient temperature distributions for both the single- and multi-borehole cases are simulated in the hypothetical geological repositories of nuclear waste. The results show that the temperature distributions in the thermal field are significantly affected by the decay heat of the waste canister, the thermal properties of the buffer and the host rock, the disposal spacing, and the thickness of the host rock at a nuclear waste repository.
KW - Analytical solution
KW - Geological repository
KW - Heat transfer
KW - High-level nuclear waste
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=67649825799&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2009.03.068
DO - 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2009.03.068
M3 - Article
C2 - 19376651
AN - SCOPUS:67649825799
SN - 0304-3894
VL - 169
SP - 108
EP - 112
JO - Journal of Hazardous Materials
JF - Journal of Hazardous Materials
IS - 1-3
ER -