ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jan 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
January 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NRC issues subsequent license renewal to Monticello plant
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed for a second time the operating license for Unit 1 of Minnesota’s Monticello nuclear power plant.
Janez Perko, Eef Weetjens
Nuclear Technology | Volume 174 | Number 3 | June 2011 | Pages 401-410
Technical Paper | TOUGH2 Symposium / Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A11748
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Assessment of gas generation and transport is inevitable for evaluation of the safety of nuclear waste disposal in deep geological formations. The long-term safety of the geological disposal facility is guaranteed by several engineered and natural barriers. The reference disposal concept in Belgium consists of a concrete-based repository situated in Boom Clay, which is a low-permeability plastic clay. Hence, the mobility of gas and liquid within these barriers is very small and may lead, in combination with increased temperatures due to decay heat of the waste, to pressure buildup and the potential structural failure of barriers. The focus of this study is on coupling two-phase water and gas flow with a heat source, originating from the heat dissipating waste. The main gas production mechanism within the considered geological repository system is (anaerobic) corrosion of metal barriers, generating H2 gas. The corrosion process itself and therefore the intensity of the gas source is temperature dependent. Furthermore, the heat source is time dependent due to the decaying nature of the radioactive material. This property, in turn, makes the gas generation rate time dependent as well. The cases presented in this work couple variable gas generation with a time-variable heat source and are modeled with TOUGH2. Because of large uncertainties associated with the yet-uncharacterized engineered materials (e.g., concrete), two bounding material permeabilities with a span of two orders of magnitude are chosen for comparison. Results demonstrate that the peak pressures for the isothermal and nonisothermal cases do not differ considerably in the case of high-permeability buffer material. On the contrary, the peak pressures differ considerably for low-permeability material, which hinders the flow of water induced by thermal expansion of water with temperature increase. This peak pressure is not related to the gas-generation process and occurs a little earlier than the gas pressure peak, which is in this case comparable to the high-permeability case. Overall, this near-field analysis showed that the effect of pressure increase remains relatively localized and should not affect the structural integrity of the host formation. The behavior of the system is additionally refined by the implementation of temperature-dependent hydrogen solubility within the numerical code, which slightly modifies the transition to H2 gas phase.