The role of cement to be expected in radioactive waste disposal system. 2. From the standpoint of materials design

Cement materials are used at various fields because of their mechanical properties, and then a large construction without using the cement materials is impossible to suppose. For disposal of radioactive wastes, it is expected to use the cement materials for a main constitution material of artificial barrier materials such as construction materials for a disposal facility, wastes container, solidification materials for wastes, and so forth, and in fact, they are used for cement solidified matters, concrete pit as a landfill apparatus, and so forth at the Low Level Radioactive Wastes Storage Center situated in Rokkasho-mura, Aomori prefecture. For their disposal, as cement materials are expected for their property on transfer control of radioactive nuclides such as water stoppage, pH buffering of circumferential groundwater, and transfer retarding, except their mechanical properties, it must be quantitatively investigated how they change with time and if their change forms any problem on safety, because a time to consider their soundness on mechanics or nuclide conservation becomes long term such as for more than hundreds years. Under consideration on disposal and technical trends of radioactive wastes in- and out of-Japan described in previous report, after showing on direction of investigation required to make the cement materials function as an artificial material in disposal of radioactive wastes and on technical trends to it, here was summarized on positioning of studies on cement in the disposal business. (G.K.)