Abstract
Most current technologies for the incorporation of high-level nuclear wastes in borosilicate glass wasteforms on a large scale yield products characterized by marked internal stresses developed during cooling and also around crystalline inclusions. We discuss here a typical borosilicate glass wasteform which, when exposed to water vapour and water for limited periods, exhibits evidence of stress corrosion cracking arising from the interaction of polar OH groups with stressed glass surfaces. Glass wasteforms may experience similar stress corrosion cracking when buried in a geological repository and exposed to groundwaters over an extended period. This would increase the effective surface areas available for leaching by groundwater and could decrease the lifetime of the wasteform. Conventional leach-testing methods are insensitive to the longer-term effects of stress corrosion cracking. We suggest that specific fracture-mechanics tests designed to evaluate susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking should be used when evaluating the wasteforms for high-level nuclear wastes.
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