A Comparative Analysis of Fractured and Porous Medium Radionuclide Transport

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V

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FRACTURED AND POROUS MEDIUM RADIONUCLIDE TRANSPORT

TRAVIS* AND H. E.

B. J.

NUTTALL**

*Earth and Space Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, Univerity

New Mexico 87131

Albuquerque,

of New Mexico,

Engineering,

**Department of Chemical and Nuclear

New Mexico 87545,

INTRODUCTION

Modeling of

radionuclide

transport

in

formations

geological

has

been limited to the treatment of nonfractured porous media.

recently

researchers in

Sweden,

the

of

problems

fractures.

Since

available,

the

Canada,

France, and the USA have

become

until

Recently

interested

in

nuclide transport in geological formations which may contain many question

conventional arises

as

ion-transport

porous-medium to

when

fracture

widths

codes

are

and fracture

frequency dictate the use of these existing codes.

This paper provides a comparative nuclide

types of geomedia, porous study

study

of

transport by modeling the far field (I medium, the

a

homogeneous

multi-fracture medium. and

single

fracture

fractured

medium

problem for three different

a homogeneous porous medium,

i.e.,

and

and

porous km)

a single fracture in

the

Analytical models were used to geometries

while

an

advanced

numerical code was used to model the multi-fractured medium.'

Analytical Models

An

analytical

model

for

the

homogeneous

instantaneous point source, radioactive decay, Nuttall

and

RayI.

Several

porous

medium.

medium

an

and retardation was presented by

The

single paper

fracture by

with

diffusion

into

the

Nuttall and RayI presents a more

complex model permitting flow and nuclide migration in both the and the fracture.

with

case

papers2,3,4 have presented essentially identical

models for nuclide transport in a surrounding

porous

porous

medium

822 Multi-Fracture Model

For the study of multi-fractured medium, a numerical model and code recently developed

by

Travis

5

was

used.

The TRACR3D code is

code used to study tracer migration and breakthrough &hale retorts.

The

code

solves

a modified version of a

in

large

the three-dimensional,

rubblized

conservation equations and modified momenta equations for single- or flow

with

transport

of a tracer in either phase.

oil

time-dependent mass two-phase

The code can handle single

phase (air or water) flow or two-phase (air and water) flow in steady state transient

conditions with (or without) tracer transport.

include advection, diffusion and velocity dependent dispersionS. simply

a

dual

or

Transport mechanisms This

is

not

porosity model but a detailed treatment of both the porous and

fracture regions.

In addition the code models radioactive decay, and has linear, Langmuir Freundlich Discrete,

sorption models. finite width,

orthogonal.

fractures can be modeled as well but fractures must

Each fluid phase (air, water) has its

either be specified as an input (in calculated

by

the

code.

conservation

equation,

(Forchheimer

flow

in

If

equ