The increasing accumulation of spent nuclear fuel has raised interest in High-Level Waste (HLW) repositories. For example, Sweden is under construction of the KBS-3 repository. To ensure the safety of such HLW repository, various countries have been developing assessment models. In the Republic of Korea, the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has been developing on the AKRS model. However, traditional safety assessment models have not considered the fracture growth in the far-field host rock as a function of time. As repository safety assessments guarantee safety for million years, sustained stress naturally leads to the progressive growth of fractures as time goes on. Therefore, it becomes essential to account for fracture growth in the surrounding host rock. To address this, our study proposes a new coupling scheme between the Fracture growth model and the radionuclide transport model. That coupling scheme consists of the Cubic Law model as a fracture growth function and the GoldSim code which is a commercial software for radionuclide transport calculations. The model that adopting such fracture growth functions showed an increase of up to 15% in the release of radionuclide compared to traditional assessment models. our observations indicated that crack growth as a function of time led to an increase in hydraulic conductivity that allowed more radionuclide transport. Notably, these findings show the significance of adopting fracture growth models as a critical element in evaluating the safety of nuclear waste repositories.

Spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is the main source of high-level radioactive wastes (HLWs), which contains approximately 96% of uranium (U). For the safe disposal of the HLWs, the SNF is packed in canisters of cast iron and copper, and then is emplaced within 500 m of host rock surrounded by compacted bentonite clay buffer for at least 100,000 years. However, in case of the failure of the multi-barrier disposal system, U might be migrated through the rock fractures and groundwater, eventually, it could reach to the biosphere. Since the dissolved U interacts with indigenous bacteria under natural and engineered environments over the long storage periods of geologic disposal, it is important to understand the characteristics of U-microbe interactions under the geochemical conditions. In particular, a few of bacteria, i.e., sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB), are able to reduce soluble U(VI) into insoluble U(IV) under anaerobic conditions by using their metabolisms, resulting in the immobilization of U. In this study, the aqueous U(VI) removal performance and change in bacterial community in response to the indigenous bacteria were investigated to understand the interactions of U-microbe under anaerobic conditions. Three different indigenous bacteria obtained from different depths of granitic groundwater (S1: 44–60 m, S2: 92–116 m, and S3: 234–244 m) were used for the reduction of U(VI)aq. After the anaerobic reaction of 24 weeks, the changes in bacterial community structure in response to the seeding indigenous bacteria were observed by high-throughput 16S rDNA gene sequencing analysis. The highest uranium removal efficiency of 57.8% was obtained in S3 sample, and followed by S2 (43.1%) and S1 (37.7%). Interestingly, SRB capable of reducing U(VI) greatly increased from 4.8% to 44.1% in S3 sample. Among the SRB identified, Thermodesulfovibrio yellowstonii played a key role on the removal of U(VI)aq. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis showed that the dspacing of precipitates observed in this study was identical with that of uraninite (UO2). This study presents the potential of U(VI)aq removal by indigenous bacteria under deep geological environment.

High level nuclear waste (HLW) is surely disposed in repository in safe by being separated from human life zone. Deep geological disposal method is one of the most potent disposal method. Deep geological repository is exposed to high pressure and groundwater saturation due to its depth over 500 m. And it is also exposed to high temperature and radiation by spent fuels. Thus, HLW repository suffers extremely complex thermo-hydro-mechanical-radioactive condition. Long-term integrity of repository should be verified because the expected lifetime of the repository is over 10,000 years. However, the integrity of monitoring sensors are not reach the endurance lifetime of the repository with present technology. And the disposal condition, thermo-hydro-mechanical-radioactive, should shorten the estimated lifetime of the monitoring sensors. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the long-term integrity of the monitoring sensors. Although long-term tests are required to identify the prolonged durability of monitoring sensors, accelerated tests can help curtail test period. Accelerated tests is classified into accelerated stress test and accelerated degradation test and their methodology and theories are investigated. Their tests are design and proceed by following process: 1) identify failure modes, 2) select accelerated stress parameter, 3) Determine stress level, 4) Determine testing time and number of specimens, 5) Define measurement paremeter and failure criteria, 6) Suggest measurement method and measurement duration. Literature reviews were conducted to identify the influence of the disposal conditions such as thermo-hydro-mechnical-radioactive on integrity of material and monitoring sensors. The investigated data reported in this paper will be utilized to verify the improvement of integrity of monitoring sensors.

In this study, the well-known non-destructive acoustic emission (AE) and electrical resistivity methods were employed to predict quantitative damage in the silo structure of the Wolsong Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Center (WLDC), Gyeongju, South Korea. Brazilian tensile test was conducted with a fully saturated specimen with a composition identical to that of the WLDC silo concrete. Bi-axial strain gauges, AE sensors, and electrodes were attached to the surface of the specimen to monitor changes. Both the AE hit and electrical resistance values helped in the anticipation of imminent specimen failure, which was further confirmed using a strain gauge. The quantitative damage (or damage variable) was defined according to the AE hits and electrical resistance and analyzed with stress ratio variations. Approximately 75% of the damage occurred when the stress ratio exceeded 0.5. Quantitative damage from AE hits and electrical resistance showed a good correlation (R = 0.988, RMSE = 0.044). This implies that AE and electrical resistivity can be complementarily used for damage assessment of the structure. In future, damage to dry and heated specimens will be examined using AE hits and electrical resistance, and the results will be compared with those from this study.

Evaluating the quantitative damage to rocks through acoustic emission (AE) has become a research focus. Most studies mainly used one or two AE parameters to evaluate the degree of damage, but several AE parameters have been rarely used. In this study, several data-driven models were employed to reflect the combined features of AE parameters. Through uniaxial compression tests, we obtained mechanical and AE-signal data for five granite specimens. The maximum amplitude, hits, counts, rise time, absolute energy, and initiation frequency expressed as the cumulative value were selected as input parameters. The result showed that gradient boosting (GB) was the best model among the support vector regression methods. When GB was applied to the testing data, the root-mean-square error and R between the predicted and actual values were 0.96 and 0.077, respectively. A parameter analysis was performed to capture the parameter significance. The result showed that cumulative absolute energy was the main parameter for damage prediction. Thus, AE has practical applicability in predicting rock damage without conducting mechanical tests. Based on the results, this study will be useful for monitoring the near-field rock mass of nuclear waste repository.

본 연구의 목적은 고준위폐기물 처분기술 개발과 관련하여 현장실증 연구를 위해 사용될 공학규모 이상의 균질 완충재 블록 을 제작하기 위한 새로운 방법론을 제시하는 것이다. 이와 관련하여 플롯팅 다이(floating die) 방식의 프레스 재하 및 냉간 등방압프레스(CIP; Cold Isostatic Press) 기법을 국내 최초로 완충재 제작에 적용하였다. 또한 소요 밀도기준을 충족하는 완충재 블록을 생산하기 위한 최적의 제작조건(프레스 및 CIP의 소요 압력)과 현장 적용성을 분석하였다. 상기 기법의 적용을 통해 완충재 블록 내 밀도분포 편차가 현저히 감소하였으며, 이와 동시에 평균 건조밀도가 소폭 상승하고 약 5%의 크기가 감소하였다. 또한 CIP 적용을 통해 응력이완(stress release) 현상이 감소하고, 이로 인해 시간 경과에 따른 표면균열 발생이 현저히 저감됨을 시험제작을 통해 확인하였다. 본 연구에서 제시된 방법론은 공학규모 이상의 균질한 완충재 블럭을 성형할 수 있으며, 또한 이는 선진핵주기 고준위폐기물처분시스템(AKRS; Advanced Korea Reference Disposal System of HLW)의 완충재 소요 밀도기준을 충족하는 것으로 분석되었다.

본 연구에서는 벤토나이트의 변질을 모사하기 위해 TOUGHREACT를 이용하여 열-수리-화학적 개념 모델링을 수행하였다. 모델링 결과 벤토나이트의 포화도는 지속적으로 증가하여 약 10 년 후에 포화상태에 도달하였다. 또한 온도는 급격히 증가 하여 0.5 년 이후에는 구리관으로부터 거리에 따라 일정한 온도 구배가 유지되었다. 이러한 열-수리 조건 변화에 따라 화학 적으로는 경석고와 방해석의 변질이 주로 발생하였다. 경석고와 방해석은 지하수가 유입됨에 따라 지속적으로 용해되었으 나, 온도가 높은 구리관 인근에서는 침전하는 경향을 보여주었다. 또한 경석고와 방해석의 침전으로 인해 구리관 인근의 공 극률과 투과도가 감소하였다. 확산 상수 변화에 대한 모델링 결과 경석고와 방해석의 변질은 확산 상수에 매우 민감하였으 며, 이는 결과적으로 수리적 특성인 공극률과 투과도에 영향을 미치고 있었다. 본 연구는 고준위 방사성폐기물 처분장 안전 성 연구에 기초적인 자료를 제공해 줄 것으로 판단된다.