Development of a Robust Extensible Integrated Hydrologic Model for Safety Assessment of Geological Barrier Systems For the Final Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The deep geologic repository (DGR) concept is widely accepted as the most feasible option for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuels. In this concept, a series of engineered and natural barrier systems are combined to safely store spent nuclear fuel and to isolate it from the biosphere for a practically indefinite period of time. Due to the extremely long lifetime of the DGR, the performance of the DGR replies especially on the natural geologic barriers. Assessing the safety of the DGR is thus required to evaluate the impacts of a wide range of geological, hydrogeological, and physicochemical processes including rare geological events as well as present water cycles and deep groundwater flow systems. Due to the time scale and the complexity of the physicochemical processes and geologic media involved, the numerical models used for safety evaluation need to be comprehensive, robust, and efficient. This study describes the development of an accessible, transparent, and extensible integrated hydrologic models (IHM) which can be approved with confidence by the regulators as well as scientific community and thus suitable for current and future safety assessment of the DGR systems. The IHM under development can currently simulate overland flow, groundwater flow, near surface evapotranspiration in a modular manner. The IHM can also be considered as a framework as it can easily accommodate additional processes and requirements for the future as it is necessary. The IHM is capable of handling the atmospheric, land surface, and subsurface processes for simultaneously analyzing the regional groundwater driving force and deep subsurface flow, and repository scale safety features, providing an ultimate basis for seamless safety assessment in the DGR program. The applicability of the IHM to the DGR safety assessment is demonstrated using illustrative examples.