Modelling radionuclide transport in large fractured-media systems: the example of Forsmark, Sweden

The planned high-level nuclear waste repository at Forsmark, Sweden, will accommodate 6,824 containers with a total of 13,920 tonnes of uranium in burnt fuel at approximately 400 m depth in a fractured-granite aquifer. The transport of radionuclides, which may be released from the disposed waste, is simulated with the TOUGHREACT code for a three-dimensional model with 305,571 elements. The model performs coupled flow-transport simulations. It aims to achieve more realistic simulations of contaminant transport than the commonly used decoupled procedure consisting of three-dimensional flow and one-dimensional transport simulations. The model has a relatively small problem size because it is designed as a double-porosity model (one matrix continuum) that is the parameterised equivalent of a much larger multiple-interacting continua (MINC) model, i.e. a model with a finely discretised matrix (several matrix continua). The parameterisation is performed with two-dimensional models. Only one or two variables among three variables (diffusive transport distance between fracture and matrix, retardation factor and effective diffusivity) have to be parameterised. The results obtained with the parameterised three-dimensional model are very close to those that can be obtained with a much larger MINC model but may be quite different from those that can be obtained with the conventional decoupled procedure.