The COUPLEX test cases: Nuclear waste disposal simulation

摘要

The models appearing in the COUPLEX benchmark are a set of simplified albeit realistic test cases aimed at simulating the transport of radionuclides around a nuclear waste repository. Three different models were used. The first test case is related to simulations based on a simplified 2D far-field model close to those used for safety assessments in nuclear waste management. It leads to a classical convection diffusion type problem, but with highly variable parameters in space, highly concentrated sources in space and time, very different time scales and accurate results expected even after millions of years. The second test case is a simplification of a typical 3D near-field computation, taking into account the glass dissolution of vitrified waste, and the congruent release of several radionuclides (including daughter products), with their migration through the geological barrier. The aim of the third test case is to use the results of the near-field computation (COUPLEX 2) to drive the behavior of the nuclide source term in the far-field computation (COUPLEX 1). The modeling of this last case was purposely left rather open, unlike the previous two, leaving the choice to participants of the way the coupling should be made.