The “shadow zone” is defined as a region below a flow obstacle, such as a vault, in unsaturated soils. Due to the capillary discontinuity of the cavity, water saturation on the top and side of the cavity is higher than the ambient saturation. On the bottom of the cavity, however, there is a region where water saturation is lower than ambient saturation. Undoubtedly, a shadow zone may also exist below a LILW disposal vault built in subsurface soils above the water table before the vault is fully degraded. During the degradation, flow in the shadow zone is controlled by the rate of water infiltrating the degrading vault. In this study, as one of the efforts to be made for enhancing safety margin by a realistic safety assessment of the engineered vault type LILW disposal facility, the shadow zone effect is investigated by a numerical parametric study using AMBER code. The conceptual model and data were excerpted from IAEA, ISAM Vault Test Case for the liquid release design scenario. It is assumed that the nearfield barriers degrade with time. In order to compare a visible shadow zone effect, the vault degradation period is assumed to be both 500 and 1,000 years, and the shadow zone depth to be varied according to unsaturated zone lithology. It can be seen that with a shorter shadow zone (2.7 m), radionuclides arrive at the water table earlier than with a full shadow zone (55 m) due to increased advection rate in the unsaturated zone. This effect tends to be more visible in the case of a longer degradation period. For radionuclides with short residence time relative to their half-lives in the unsaturated zone, such as Tc-99 and I-129, the radionuclides are shown to come out because they will arrive sooner, thereby allowing less peak release rate, when the shadow zone effect is considered. Once the vault is completely degraded and the infiltration rate of water flowing through the vault is equal to the ambient rate, the shadow zone effect disappears. In this example calculations using IAEA ISAM Vault Test Case input parameters, it might not be shown a significant shadow zone effect. Nevertheless, when the extent of the shadow zone is determined through more sophisticated hydraulic studies in the unsaturated soils surrounding the vault, the shadow zone effect would be checked up on the realistic near-field radionuclide transport modeling in order to contribute to gaining safety margins for post-closure safety assessment of the Wolsong 2nd phase LILW disposal facility.

• Wontak Lee(RADCORE)
• Dongki Kim(RADCORE)
• Joowan Park(RADCORE) Corresponding author