Implications of THMC Processes on Long-Term Safety of Geological Disposal of Radioactive Waste, 2nd Edition
A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Clays and Engineered Mineral Materials".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 681
Special Issue Editors
Interests: geomechanics; contaminant hydrogeology; coupled THMC processes in geomaterials; deep geological disposal
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: geotechnical engineering; deep geological disposal; THMC processes in geosystems; mining geotechnics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues，
Geological disposal consists in placing waste in a repository at depths of hundreds of meters in a suitable rock formation. It is considered in many countries for the long-term management of radioactive waste. A deep geological repository (DGR) relies on a multiple-redundant-barrier system, with engineered and natural components that act together to contain and isolate the waste for tens of thousands to millions of years. The engineered barrier components are typically the waste container and the bentonite sealing system which surrounds the container in the emplacement room; the host rock formation is the natural component. The primary type of waste considered for deep geological disposal is high-level radioactive waste, such as used fuel from nuclear power plants. High-level waste (HLW) generates heat and would substantially raise the ambient temperature in the DGR and host rock for tens of thousands of years. This heat results in complex coupled processes that perturb the thermal–mechanical–hydraulic–chemical regime in the multiple-barrier system and impact its long-term performance.
Research in coupled THMC processes has been active for the last few decades, resulting in ever-improving capabilities of mathematical models for THMC processes to predict experiments conducted at different research institutions and underground research facilities. At present, many countries have moved past the stage of concept development and fundamental research and have started or are close to implementing geological disposal. Therefore, we believe it is timely to consider the following questions:
- How do coupled THMC processes impact the containment and isolation of a DGR? When do they need to be considered and when can they be neglected?
- How confident are we that coupled THMC models could be used to evaluate the long-term evolution of a DGR (up to 1 million years) while they are typically developed and validated using short-term experiments?
The editors therefore invite contributions, either in the form of a thematic review or the reporting of original research that can shed some light on the above two questions. Although the focus of this call for papers is on geological disposal of radioactive waste, coupled THMC processes are important in many other underground engineering applications, such as carbon sequestration, petroleum extraction using hot water injection, geothermal energy, and mine backfilling. Therefore, contributions from these other fields that shed light on the second question above are particularly welcome.
Dr. Thanh Son Nguyen
Prof. Dr. Mamadou Fall
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- coupled thermal–hydrological–mechanical–chemical processes
- geological disposal of radioactive waste
- long-term safety
- geomaterials
- geotechnical
- barrier
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