Abstract
The Nuclear Development Corporation of South Africa (Pty) Ltd. (NUCOR) is constructing a low-level radioactive waste disposal site near Springbok in Namaqualand, an arid region to the west of South Africa. A groundwater model was developed which required site-specific data and this work describes procedures developed to assess the dispersivity of the soil in the vicinity of the proposed site. Preliminary laboratory tests, carried out using a sodium chloride solution, indicated the order of magnitude of the dispersivity for saturated soil at various levels. This enabled site tests to be designed. The site tests were done by injecting a pulse of scandium-46 into a hole and monitoring the displacement of the radioactive cloud as it moved down under gravity and spread laterally. A mathematical model was developed to predict the behaviour of the cloud and calibration of the model yielded vertical and horizontal dispersivities. The dispersion of radioactivity at the cloud front was assumed to occur in unsaturated medium while the continuously injected water behind the radioactivity was assumed to disperse in a saturated medium. Thus monitoring the concentration of both yielded approximate values for the effective dispersivities in unsaturated and saturated media.
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