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Coupled hydro-mechanical–chemical process modelling in argillaceous formations for DECOVALEX-2011

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

A. E. Bond ,
S. Benbow ,
J. Wilson ,
C. McDermott  and
M. English
A. E. Bond*
Affiliation:
Quintessa Limited, Chadwick House, Birchwood Park, Warrington, Cheshire WA3 6AE, UK
S. Benbow
Affiliation:
Quintessa Limited, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
J. Wilson
Affiliation:
Quintessa Limited, Chadwick House, Birchwood Park, Warrington, Cheshire WA3 6AE, UK
C. McDermott
Affiliation:
Grant Institute, The King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, UK
M. English
Affiliation:
Grant Institute, The King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, UK
*
*E-mail: alexbond@quintessa.org
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Abstract

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The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Radioactive Waste Management Directorate have been participating in the current DECOVALEX-2011 project (development of coupled models and their validation against experiments) one task of which has been examining the Mont Terri Ventilation Experiment (VE). This long-term (>9 years), field-scale experiment in the Opalinus Clay near the Swiss–French border, was designed to examine the coupled hydraulic–mechanical–chemical changes caused in the tunnel and in the surrounding geology, by the controlled ventilation of a 1.65 m diameter micro-tunnel.

In contrast to many conventional benchmarking and validation exercises, a key aspect of the VE as examined in DECOVALEX was that some data were held back and participants were required to make predictions of key metrics for the future evolution of the system. This paper presents an overview of the work conducted by the Quintessa and University of Edinburgh team including selected results. The coupled models developed include multiphase flow, elastic deformation and chemical processes in both detailed and upscaled geometries.

The models have been able to replicate the observed desaturation around the tunnel, tunnel deformation and localized failure, vapour migration in the tunnel, and the transition in redox conditions into the host rock.

Keywords

coupled hydro-mechanical-chemical process modellingmont terri ventilation experiment
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 76 , Issue 8 , December 2012 , pp. 3131 - 3143
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
© [2012] The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2012

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