Publications
Determination of factors influencing radionuclide transport in fractured crystalline rock
Numerical modeling of flow and transport through fractured crystalline rock was conducted to identify major factors that affect migration of radionuclides from a high-level nuclear waste repository. The study was based on data collected at the Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory (URL) in Japan. Distributions of fracture parameters were used to generate a selected number of DFN realizations. For each realization the DFN was upscaled to a continuum mesh to provide permeability and porosity fields. The upscaled permeability and porosity fields were then used to study flow and transport through the fractured rock in a site-scale domain. For the present study the focus is on the effect of domain size and on upscaling of DFN to a continuum system. Simulation results and analysis on various upscaling and boundary condition assumptions are presented.