Non-Darcian flow in low-permeability media: key issues related to geological disposal of high-level nuclear waste in shale formations

Abstract

In clay or other low-permeability media, water flow becomes non-Darcian and characterized by the non-linear relationship between water flux and hydraulic gradient. This work is devoted to addressing a number of key issues related to geological disposal of high-level nuclear waste in clay/shale formations. It is demonstrated that water flow velocity in the damaged zone (often considered as a potential preferential advection paths in a repository) surrounding the tunnel is extremely small, as a result of non-Darcian flow behavior, such that solute transport is dominated by diffusion, rather than advection. The finding is also consistent with the often-observed existence of persistent abnormal pressures in shale formations. While relative permeability is the key parameter for modeling the unsaturated flow process, without incorporating non-Darcian flow behavior, significant errors can occur in the determination of relative permeability values from traditional measurement methods. An approach for dealing with temperature impact on non-Darcian flow and a formulation to calculate non-Darcian water flux in an anisotropic medium are presented, taking into consideration that a geological repository is subject to temperature evolution in the near field as a result of heat generated by nuclear waste, and that shale formations are generally anisotropic.