Gas migration mechanism of saturated highly-compacted bentonite and its modeling

In the current concept of repository for radioactive waste disposal, compacted bentonite will be used as an engineered barrier mainly for inhibiting migration of radioactive nuclides. Hydrogen gas can be generated inside the engineered barrier by anaerobic corrosion of metals used for containers, etc. If the gas generation rate exceeds the diffusion rate of gas molecules inside of the engineered barrier, gas will accumulate in the void space inside of the engineered barrier until its pressure becomes large enough for it to enter the bentonite as a discrete gaseous phase. It is expected to be not easy for gas to entering into the bentonite as a discrete gaseous phase because the pore of compacted bentonite is so minute. Therefore the gas migration tests are conducted in this study to investigate the mechanism of gas migration. On the basis of the experimental facts obtained through the gas migration tests, possible gas migration mechanism is proposed. A simplified method for calculating gas pressure at large breakthrough, which is defined as a sudden and sharp increase in gas flow rate out of the specimen is also proposed. (author)