Publications
Potential use of geologic rock salt for fuel cycle sustainability -a computational modeling perspective
Because of relatively recent decisions by the current administration and its renewed assessment of the nuclear life- cycle, the various deep geologic disposal medium options are once again open for consideration. This paper focuses on addressing the favorable creep properties and behavior of rock salt, from the computational modeling perspective, as it relates to its potential use as a disposal medium for a deep geologic repository. The various components that make up a computational modeling capability to address the thermo-mechanical behavior of rock salt over a wide range of time and space are presented here. Several example rock salt calculations are also presented to demonstrate the applicability and validity of the modeling capability described herein to address repository-scale problems. The evidence shown points to a mature computational capability that can generate results relevant to the design and assessment of a potential rock salt HLW repository. The computational capability described here can be used to help enable fuel cycle sustainability by appropriately vetting the use of geologic rock salt for use as a deep geologic disposal medium.