Bentonite, a material mainly used in buffer and backfill of the engineering barrier system (EBS) that makes up the deep geological repository, is a porous material, thus porewater could be contained in it. The porewater components will be changed through ‘water exchange’ with groundwater as time passes after emplacement of subsystems containing bentonite in the repository. ‘Water exchange’ is a phenomenon in which porewater and groundwater components are exchanged in the process of groundwater inflow into bentonite, which affects swelling property and radionuclide sorption of bentonite. Therefore, it is necessary to assess conformity with the performance target and safety function for bentonite. Accordingly, we reviewed how to handle the ‘water exchange’ phenomenon in the performance assessment conducted as part of the operating license application for the deep geological repository in Finland, and suggested studies and/or data required for the performance assessment of the domestic disposal facility on the basis of the results. In the previous assessment in Finland, after dividing the disposal site into a number of areas, reference and bounding groundwaters were defined considering various parameters by depth and climate change (i.e. phase). Subsequently, after defining reference and bounding porewaters in consideration of water exchange with porewater for each groundwater type, the swelling and radionuclides sorption of bentonite were assessed through analyzing components of the reference porewater. From the Finnish case, it is confirmed that the following are important from the perspective of water exchange: (a) definition of reference porewater, and (b) variations in cation concentration and cation exchange capacity (CEC) in porewater. For applying items above to the domestic disposal facility, the site-specific parameters should be reflected for the following: structure of the bedrock, groundwater composition, and initial components of bentonite selected. In addition, studies on the following should be required for identifying properties of the domestic disposal site: (1) variations in groundwater composition by subsurface depth, (2) variations in groundwater properties by time frame, and (3) investigation on the bedrock structure, and (4) survey on initial composition of porewater in selected bentonite The results of this study are presumed to be directly applied to the design and performance assessment for buffer and backfill materials, which are important components that make up the domestic disposal facility, given the site-specific data.

한국형 기준 처분시스템의 공학적 방벽에서의 열-수리-역학 복합 현상을 실증하기 위한 공학적 규모 실증실험 장치인 KENTEX에서 얻은 열, 수리, 역학적 실험 데이터를 이용하여 벤토나이트의 포화공정을 해석하였다. ABAQUS를 사용한 모델계산의 함수율과 실험 결과의 비교에서 불포화 영역에서는 온도상승으로 인해 초기 수분이 감소하는 수분 재분포 공정을 모델에 포함시키지 않아 함수율의 차가 컸다. 포화영역에서는 실험에서 초기 수분보다 낮은 함수율에서부터 지하수로 포화가 진행되지만 모델과 실험에서 얻은 함수율 값의 차이가 점점 감소해 완전포화에 도달할 때에는 두 함수율 값이 거의 비슷한 결과를 보여주었다. 포화도 약 95%에 이르는 시간은 실험결과와 계산 결과가 서로 비슷한 약 500일 정도로 예측할수 있었다. 그리고 불포화 영역의 수분 재분포가 벤토나이트의 완전포화에 도달하는 시간에는 큰 영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 분석되었다. 따라서 본 해석기법을 사용하면 지하처분연구시설의 완충재인 벤토나이트의 포화시간을 예측할 수 있을 것으로 판단된다.