• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.28-53
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• 2024

In general, high-level radioactive waste (HLW) generated as a result of nuclear power generation should be disposed within the country. Determination of the disposal site and host rock for HLW deep geological repository is an important issue not only scientifically but also politically, economically, and socially. Considered host rock types worldwide for geological disposal include crystalline rocks, sedimentary rocks, volcanic rocks, and salt dome. However, South Korea consists of various rock types except salt dome. This paper not only analyzed the geological and rock mechanical characteristics on a nationwide scale with the preliminary results on various rock type studies for the disposal host rock, but also reviewed the characteristics and possibility of various rock types as a host rock through deep drilling surveys. Based on the nationwide screening for host rock types resulted from literature review, rock distributions, and detailed case studies, Jurassic granites and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks (Jinju and Jindong formations) were derived as a possible candidate host rock types for the geological disposal. However, since the analyzed data for candidate rock types from this study is not enough, it is suggested that the disposal rock type should be carefully determined from additional and detailed analysis on disposal depth, regional characteristics, multidisciplinary investigations, etc.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.89-103
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• 2024

In the disposal environment, gases can be generated at the interface between canister and buffer due to various factors such as anaerobic corrosion, radiolysis, and microbial degradation. If the gas generation rate exceeds the diffusion rate, the gas within the buffer may compress, resulting in physical damage to the buffer due to the increased pore pressure. In particular, the rapid movement of gases, known as gas breakthroughs, through the dilatancy pathway formed during this process may lead to releasing radionuclide. Therefore, understanding these gas generation and movement mechanism is essential for the safety assessment of the disposal systems. In this study, an experimental apparatus for investigating gas migration within buffer was constructed based on a literature review. Subsequently, a gas injection experiment was conducted on a compacted bentonite block made of Bentonile WRK (Clariant Ltd.) powder. The results clearly demonstrated a sharp increase in stress and pressure typically observed at the onset of gas breakthrough within the buffer. Additionally, the range of stresses induced by the swelling phenomenon of the buffer, was 4.7 to 9.1 MPa. The apparent gas entry pressure was determined to be approximately 7.8 MPa. The equipment established in this study is expected to be utilized for various experiments aimed at building a database on the initial properties of buffer and the conditions during gas injection, contributing to understanding the gas migration phenomena.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.17-22
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• 2024

The war that broke out on October 7, 2023 is prolonging and expanding into the Middle East. Although the damage from war is increasing, humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has been halted due to UNRWA's deviant actions. Powerful countries have suspended support, and the UN is appealing for support for the Gaza Strip. All damage is borne by civilians in the Gaza Strip, especially women, children, and the elderly. Israel has selected an evacuation zone and evacuation route in the Gaza Strip and established a humanitarian aid route in the border area. However, Hamas's resistance in underground tunnels, using civilian-dense areas and civilian facilities such as hospitals and schools as shields, further amplified civilian casualties. This Israel-Hamas war requires the international community to approach it from a human security perspective. We must strengthen the UN's functions and roles to ensure that humanitarian supplies reach the field and humanitarian intervention forces ensure human dignity and basic rights. We must restore the credibility of the UN's role through the Israel-Hamas war. In addition, Korea should urge the introduction of humanitarian aid and goods, and provide humanitarian goods such as daily necessities and medicine. We must also prepare for deployment as a member of the UN peacekeeping force in the future. These activities will help Korea develop into a model country that fulfills its role as a 'global pivotal nation' and will have a virtuous cycle of international support in the event of a future crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.330-354
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• 2024

In site characterization of high-level radioactive waste, discontinuity(joint) distribution and rock mass classification, which are key evaluation parameters in the rock engineering field, were evaluated using deep boreholes in the Wonju granite and Chuncheon granite, which belong to Mesozoic Jurassic era. To evaluate joint distribution characteristics, fracture zones and joint surfaces extracted from ATV data were used, and major joint sets were evaluated along with joint frequency according to depth, dip direction, and dip. Both the Wonju and Chuncheon granites that were studied showed a tendency for the frequency of joints to increase linearly with depth, and joints with high angles were relatively widely distributed. In addition, relatively large amounts of weathering tended to occur even in deep depth due to groundwater inflow through high-angle joints. RQD values remained consistently low even at considerable depth. Meanwhile, joint groups with low angles showed different joint characteristics from joint sets with high angles. Rock mass classification was performed based on RMR system, and along with rock mass classification for 50 m intervals where uniaxial compressive strength was performed, continuous rock mass classification according to depth was performed using velocity log data and geostatistical techniques. The Wonju granite exhibited a superior rock mass class compared to the Chuncheon granite. In the 50 m interval and continuous rock mass classification, the shallow part of the Wonju granite showed a higher class than the deep part, and the deep part of the Chuncheon granite showed a higher class than the shallow part.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.355-373
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• 2024

The Generalized Hoek-Brown (GHB) criterion is a nonlinear failure criterion specialized for rock engineering applications and has recently seen increased usage. However, the GHB criterion expresses the relationship between minimum and maximum principal stresses at failure, and when GSI≠100, it has disadvantage of being difficult to express as an explicit relationship between the normal and shear stresses acting on the failure plane, i.e., as a Mohr failure envelope. This disadvantage makes it challenging to apply the GHB criterion in numerical analysis techniques such as limit equilibrium analysis, upper-bound limit analysis, and the critical plane approach. Consequently, recent studies have attempted to express the GHB Mohr failure envelope as an approximate analytical formula, and there is still a need for continued interest in related research. This study presents improved formulations for the approximate GHB Mohr failure envelope, offering higher accuracy in predicting shear strength compared to existing formulas. The improved formulation process employs a method to enhance the approximation accuracy of the tangential friction angle and utilizes the tangent line equation of the nonlinear GHB failure envelope to improve the accuracy of shear strength approximation. In the latter part of this paper, the advantages and limitations of the proposed approximate GHB failure envelopes in terms of shear strength prediction accuracy and calculation time are discussed.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.320-334
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• 2020

This study presents an application of hydro-mechanical coupled Particle Flow Code 3D (PFC3D) to simulation of fluid injection induced fault slip experiment conducted in Mont Terri Switzerland as a part of a task in an international research project DECOVALEX-2019. We also aimed as identifying the current limitations of the modelling method and issues for further development. A fluid flow algorithm was developed and implemented in a 3D pore-pipe network model in a 3D bonded particle assembly using PFC3D v5, and was applied to Mont Terri Step 2 minor fault activation experiment. The simulated results showed that the injected fluid migrates through the permeable fault zone and induces fault deformation, demonstrating a full hydro-mechanical coupled behavior. The simulated results were, however, partially matching with the field measurement. The simulated pressure build-up at the monitoring location showed linear and progressive increase, whereas the field measurement showed an abrupt increase associated with the fault slip We conclude that such difference between the modelling and the field test is due to the structure of the fault in the model which was represented as a combination of damage zone and core fractures. The modelled fault is likely larger in size than the real fault in Mont Terri site. Therefore, the modelled fault allows several path ways of fluid flow from the injection location to the pressure monitoring location, leading to smooth pressure build-up at the monitoring location while the injection pressure increases, and an early start of pressure decay even before the injection pressure reaches the maximum. We also conclude that the clay filling in the real fault could have acted as a fluid barrier which may have resulted in formation of fluid over-pressurization locally in the fault. Unlike the pressure result, the simulated fault deformations were matching with the field measurements. A better way of modelling a heterogeneous clay-filled fault structure with a narrow zone should be studied further to improve the applicability of the modelling method to fluid injection induced fault activation.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.10-18
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• 2021

Acclimatization after grafting and graft-take that in order to produce plug seedlings of high-quality are important plug seedling stage which not reduce the plug seedlings quality before shipment. Appropriate acclimatization environment can not only increase seedling quality before secondary growth period, but also effective in promoting the growth of plug seedlings. This study was conducted to determine the optimal the shading period and shading level for acclimatization of tomato and pepper grafted plug seedlings after graft-take. The tomato and pepper seedlings were used in this experiment, and after graft-take, a tunnel was installed on a bed in glasshouse of venlo type to started shading treatment. The shading levels were 35, 55, 75 and 95%, and the shading periods were 1 and 2 weeks, and non-treatment was set as the control. In the case of tomato grafted plug seedling, plant height, stem diameter, dry weight of root, leaf area were significantly higher at the shading period of 1 week and the shading level was 55%. In the case of pepper grafted plug seedling, plant height, stem diameter, and leaf area were the highest in the shading period of 2 weeks and the shading level was 35%. However, dry weight of root, compactness, and T/R ratio, which seedling quality indicators, were lower than in the shading period of 1 week and the shading level 55%. Therefore, considering the quality of seedlings, it is suggested that shading period of 1 week with shading level of 55% treatment can be suitable to produce high quality grafted plug seedlings of tomato and pepper.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.52-63
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• 2003

Discontinuities such as faults, fractures and joints in rock mass play the dominant role in the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the rock mass. The key factors that influence on the flow of groundwater are hydraulic and geometric characteristics of discontinuities and their connectivity. In this study, a program that analyzes groundwater flow in the 3D discontinuity network was developed on the assumption that the discontinuity characteristics such as density, trace length, orientation and aperture have particular distribution functions. This program generates discontinuities in a three-dimensional space and analyzes their connectivity and groundwater flow. Due to the limited computing capacity In this study, REV was not exactly determined, but it was inferred to be greater than 25$\times$25$\times$25 ㎥. By calculating the extent of aperture that influences on the groundwater flow, it was found that the discontinuities with the aperture smaller than 30% of the mean aperture had little influence on the groundwater flow. In addition, there was little difference in the equivalent hydraulic conductivity for the the two cases when considering and not considering the boundary effect. It was because the groundwater flow was mostly influenced by the discontinuities with large aperture. Among the parameters considered in this study, the length, aperture, and orientation of discontinuities had the greatest influence on the equivalent hydraulic conductivity of rock mass in their order. In case of existence of a fault in rock mass, elements of the equivalent hydraulic conductivity tensor parallel to the fault fairly increased in their magnitude but those perpendicular to the fault were increased in a very small amount at the first stage and then converged.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.400-425
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• 2018

This study presents the research results and current status of the DECOVALEX-2019 project Task B. Task B named 'Fault slip modelling' is aiming at developing a numerical method to simulate the coupled hydro-mechanical behavior of fault, including slip or reactivation, induced by water injection. The first research step of Task B is a benchmark simulation which is designed for the modelling teams to familiarize themselves with the problem and to set up their own codes to reproduce the hydro-mechanical coupling between the fault hydraulic transmissivity and the mechanically-induced displacement. We reproduced the coupled hydro-mechanical process of fault slip using TOUGH-FLAC simulator. The fluid flow along a fault was modelled with solid elements and governed by Darcy's law with the cubic law in TOUGH2, whereas the mechanical behavior of a single fault was represented by creating interface elements between two separating rock blocks in FLAC3D. A methodology to formulate the hydro-mechanical coupling relations of two different hydraulic aperture models and link the solid element of TOUGH2 and the interface element of FLAC3D was suggested. In addition, we developed a coupling module to update the changes in geometric features (mesh) and hydrological properties of fault caused by water injection at every calculation step for TOUGH-FLAC simulator. Then, the transient responses of the fault, including elastic deformation, reactivation, progressive evolutions of pathway, pressure distribution and water injection rate, to stepwise pressurization were examined during the simulations. The results of the simulations suggest that the developed model can provide a reasonable prediction of the hydro-mechanical behavior related to fault reactivation. The numerical model will be enhanced by continuing collaboration and interaction with other research teams of DECOLVAEX-2019 Task B and validated using the field data from fault activation experiments in a further study.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.217-224
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• 2008

In deep geological disposal system, the integrity of a disposal canister having spent fuels is very important factor to assure the safety of the repository system. This disposal canister is one element of the engineered barriers to isolate and to delay the radioactivity release from human beings and the environment for a long time so that the toxicity does not affect the environment. The main requirement in designing the deep geological disposal system is to keep the buffer temperature below 100$^{\circ}C$ by the decay heat from the spent fuels in the canister in order to maintain the integrity of the buffer material. Also, the disposal canister can endure the hydraulic pressure in the depth of 500 m and the swelling pressure of the bentonite as a buffer. In this study, new concept of the disposal canister for the CANDU spent fuels which were considered to be disposed without any treatment was developed and the thermal stability and the structural integrity of the canister were analysed. The result of the thermal analysis showed that the temperature of the buffer was 88.9$^{\circ}C$ when 37 years have passed after emplacement of the canister and the spacings of the disposal tunnel and the deposition holes were 40 m and 3 m, respectively. In the case of structural analysis, the result showed that the safety factors of the normal and the extreme environment were 2.9 and 1.33, respectively. So, these results reveal that the canister meets the thermal and the structural requirements in the deep geological disposal system.