Koichiro Hatanaka

Application of direct‐fitting, mass integral, and multirate methods to analysis of flowing fluid electric conductivity logs from Horonobe, Japan

The flowing fluid electric conductivity (FFEC) logging method is an efficient way to provide information on the depths, salinities, and transmissivities of individual conductive features intercepted by a borehole, without the use of specialized probes. Using it in a multiple-flow-rate mode allows, in addition, an estimate of the inherent far-field pressure heads in each of the conductive features. The multi-rate method was successfully applied to a 500-m borehole in a granitic formation and reported recently. The present paper presents the application of the method to two zones within a 1000-m borehole in sedimentary rock, which produced, for each zone, three sets of logs at different pumping rates, each set measured over a period of about one day. The data sets involve a number of complications, such as variable well diameter, free water table decline in the well, and effects of drilling mud. To analyze data from this borehole, we apply various techniques that have been developed for analyzing FFEC logs: direct-fitting, mass-integral, and the multi-rate method mentioned above. In spite of complications associated with the tests, analysis of the data is able to identify 44 hydraulically conducting fractures distributed over the depth interval 150-775 meters below ground surface. The salinities (in FEC), and transmissivities and pressure heads (in dimensionless form) of these 44 features are obtained and found to vary significantly among one another. These results are compared with data from eight packer tests with packer intervals of 10-80 m, which were conducted in this borehole over the same depth interval. They are found to be consistent with these independent packer-test data, thus demonstrating the robustness of the FFEC logging method under non-ideal conditions.

Electrokinetic Study of Migration of Anions, Cations, and Water in Water-Saturated Compacted Sodium Montmorillonite

Electromigration studies of 36Cl− ions and 22Na+ ions, and electro-osmosis of water traced with HTO and H2 18O were conducted with water-saturated compacted sodium montmorillonite having dry densities from 0.8 to 1.6 Mg/m3. The mobilities and dispersivities for each species were obtained from the apparent electromigration velocities and hydrodynamic dispersion coefficients, respectively. When corrected by water flow, the apparent diffusion coefficients of Cl− ions obtained from the Einstein relation are in good agreement with the coefficients obtained from an earlier conventional diffusion experiment in the high dry densities (above 1.3 Mg/m3,). This result suggests that the migration pathways of Cl− ions are nearly identical to those of water above 1.3 Mg/m3. The former diffusion coefficient is smaller than the latter in the low dry densities (below 1.3 Mg/m3), suggesting that Cl− ions migrate in the region distant from the montmorillonite sheets. In contrast, for Na+ ions, the obtained Da values without water flow correction are in good agreement with conventional values at all dry densities. This suggests that Na+ ions migrate mainly in the interlayer and the vicinity of montmorillonite sheets. The dispersivities increase with increasing dry densities for all species. This corresponds to a geometrical complexity that increases with increasing dry density.

Development of Low Alkaline Cement Considering Pozzolanic Reaction for Support System in HLW Repository Construction

Cementitious materials have been studied for their applicability as support and lining in the construction of shafts and tunnels of the underground facilities for HLW disposal system. However, in the case of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), the buffer materials and the host rock may be altered due to the high alkalinity of groundwater contacting the OPC in the long-term. Low alkaline cements with high content of pozzolanic material were developed in order to reduce such hyper alkaline alteration. This paper shows that the pH of the leaching solution of this cement is about 11, and that it can be applied for full scale lining and for shotcrete.

Geo-descriptive Modeling of Water Conducting Features Characterized in Sedimentary Formations in Horonobe Area of Japan

A three-dimensional (3-D) discrete fracture network (DFN) geo-descriptive model is developed for water conducting features (WCFs) in the sedimentary formations of Horonobe underground research laboratory (URL) in Japan. Fracturing and faulting system in/around the URL area, which is the main investigation area of the Horonobe URL project, is characterized by taking into account borehole geophysical logging data, regional geologic/structural data, and fracture/fault data (orientation, intensity, size) obtained from the surface-based investigations. Volumetric fracture intensity potential is estimated by the correlation and the multi-linear regression analysis of observed data, and is used as one of controls for 3-D DFN model. A regional scale 3-D geo-descriptive DFN model is constructed based on the analyzed fracturing system identified for the WCFs. The current 3-D geo-descriptive model could be utilized explicitly to derive performance assessment (PA) parameters for the hypothetical repository of the high-level radioactive wastes in Japan, and to assist optimization of the safe repository design.

Experimental study on groundwater flow and mass transport in a heterogeneous porous medium

In performance assessment of geological disposal systems the phenomenon of dispersion in geological media is one of the most important processes to be modeled and is dependent on the heterogeneity of the media. In order to understand the dispersion process in a well defined heterogeneous field, laboratory experimental apparatus, named MACRO, was constructed to study fluid flow and mass transport. A synthetic heterogeneous field was constructed in a flow-bed using six kinds of glass beads with diameters of 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 mm. Both dye (brilliant blue) and NaCI solution were used as tracers in the experiment. A particle tracking method, considering advection, was used in numerical simulations of the experiment, and the dispersion effect was assumed to be expressed by the variability of the local advective velocity in a high resolution numerical grid. The simulated results obtained by the particle tracking method agreed with the measurement, confirming the applicability of modelling approach used in this study.

Current Status of Horonobe URL Project in Construction Phase

The Horonobe URL project has been pursued by JAEA (Japan Atomic Energy Agency) to establish and demonstrate site characterization methodologies, engineering technologies, and safety assessment methodologies for HLW geological disposal in relevant geological environment with sedimentary rock and saline groundwater distributing in the Horonobe area, Hokkaido, Japan. In the Horonobe URL project, surface-based investigation phase (Phase I) has already completed in the fiscal year 2005, and then construction phase (Phase II) has initiated in the same year. Currently, construction of the underground facilities such as shafts/galleries which were designed in Phase I, investigations of the geological environment in the excavated shafts/galleries and confirmation of applicability of engineering technologies have been alternately carried out as Phase II activities of the project. During the construction so far, monitoring for the construction safety such as convergence measurements, tunnel wall observation, sampling of groundwater and rock, investigations for evaluating excavation damaged/disturbed zone (EDZ/EdZ) along shafts/galleries were carried out. In addition, a shotcrete construction test and a grout injection test by using low alkaline cement material were carried in the horizontal galleries. In this paper, status of the URL construction and research activities mentioned above are outlined as the current achievement of the Horonobe URL project.Copyright

Radionuclide migration analysis using a discrete fracture network model

This paper describes an approach for assessing the geosphere performance of nuclear waste disposal in fractured rock. In this approach, a three-dimensional heterogeneous channel-network model is constructed using a stochastic discrete fracture network (DFN) code. Radionuclide migration in the channel-network model is solved using the Laplace transform Galerkin finite element method, taking into account advection-dispersion in a fracture network, matrix diffusion, sorption in the rock matrix as well as radioactive chain decay. Preliminary radionuclide migration analysis was performed for fifty realizations of a synthetic block-scale DFN model. The total radionuclide release from all packages in the repository was estimated from the statistics of the results of fifty realizations under the hypothesis of ergodicity. The interpretation of the result of the three-dimensional network model by a combination of simpler one-dimensional parallel plate models is also discussed.