Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Investigations Project: G-Tunnel small-diameter heater experiments: Final report

Designers and analysts of radioactive waste repositories must be able to predict thermal and hydrothermal behavior of tuffs. Therefore, Sandia National Laboratories elected to conduct three experiments in both welded and nonwelded tuffs, using a single small-diameter (10.2-cm) heater for all three experiments. For two experiments, the heater was oriented vertically in fractured welded tuff and in unfractured nonwelded tuff; horizontal heater orientation was used in fractured welded tuff. The major focus of the experiments was on evaluation of numerical model applications, emphasizing thermal properties; the secondary focus was on hydrothermal measurements and evaluations