Abstract
The amount of water seeping into waste emplacement tunnels is important for the long-term performance of the proposed geologic nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The repository site is located in thick, partially saturated fractured tuff that will be heated to above-boiling temperatures as a result of heat generation from the decay of nuclear waste. Since water infiltrating down towards the repository will be subject to vigorous boiling for a significant time period, the superheated zone (i.e. rock temperature above the boiling point of water) may form an effective vaporization barrier that reduces the possibility of water arrival at emplacement drifts. In this paper, we analyze the behavior of episodic preferential flow events that penetrate down into the hot fractured rock zone, and evaluate the impact of such flow behavior on the effectiveness of the vaporization barrier. The characteristic features of episodic preferential flow are estimated from laboratory experiments and described by appropriate probability distributions. A semi-analytical solution is utilized to determine the complex flow processes in the hot rock environment. The solution is applied at several discrete times after emplacement, in order to cover the time period of strongly elevated temperatures at Yucca Mountain.
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