RETROCK: Treatment of geosphere retention phenomena in safety assessments

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 01.0078-2

Key words (English)

Radioactive waste; safety assessment; geosphere; retention processes;
Nuclear Fission; Radioactive Waste; Safety

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: FIKW-CT-2001-20201

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 5.5.2 Nuclear fission

Short description (English)

See abstract

Partners and International Organizations (English)

Coordinator: Safram Oy, Espo (FIN)

Abstract (English)

In RETROCK it will be examined, how the retention processes should be recognised in the safety assessment (SA) models for deep geological repositories in saturated hard fractured rock.
The project will judge in-depth the scientific basis of the available concepts, their applicability for simplified SA models, and to seek for the proper measuring approaches and data abstraction schemes (data 'up-scaling') for the utilisation of the experimental data. The present situation will first be mapped in the participating and selected other organisations.
The practises will be studied by the experts of RETROCK and by selected external attendees to be invited in a Workshop in the midterm of the project. Finally, the project will publish a technical report with the synthesis on the retention processes and recommendations for the treatment of retention in SA models.

The overall objective of the project is to develop a common basis for incorporating geosphere retention phenomena in safety assessments for deep geological repositories. The main focus will be in examining whether simplifications frequently adopted in safety assessments can be defended with more complex process models, experiments and other sources. The project concentrates on saturated fractured hard rocks, such as e.g. crystalline bedrock.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 01.0078-2