Study of thermal-gradient-induced migration of brine inclusions in salt. Final report

Abstract

Natural salt deposits, which are being considered for high-level waste disposal, contain a small volume fraction of water in the form of brine inclusions distributed throughout the salt. Radioactive decay heating of the nuclear wastes will impose a temperature gradient on the surrounding salt which mobilizes the brine inclusions. Inclusions filled completely with brine (the all-liquid inclusions) migrate up the temperature gradient and eventually accumulate brine near the buried waste forms. The brine may slowly corrode or degrade the waste forms, which is undesirable. Therefore it is important to consider the migration of brine inclusions in salt under imposed temperature gradients to properly evaluate the performance of a future salt repository for nuclear wastes. The migration velocities of the inclusions were found to be dependent on temperature, temperature gradient, and inclusion shape and size. The velocities were also dictated by the interfacial mass transfer resistance at brine/solid interface. This interfacial resistance depends on the dislocation density in the crystal, which in turn, depends on the axial compressive loading of the crystal. At low axial loads, the dependence between the velocity and temperature gradient is nonlinear. At high axial loads, the interfacial resistance is reduced and the migration velocity depends linearly on the temperature gradient. All-liquid inclusions filled with mixed brines were also studied. For gas-liquid inclusions, helium, air and argon were compared. Migration studies were also conducted on single crystallites of natural salt as well as in polycrystalline natural salt samples. The behavior of the inclusions at large-ange grain boundaries was observed.