Setting temperature evolution of nitrate radwaste immobilized in ordinary portland cement

Materials based on hydraulic cements such as ordinary Portland cement (OPC) have many applications in the radioactive waste disposal field. Cement hydration process is an exothermic reaction and can cause a considerable temperature rise in the cemented waste form. Specially when large blocks of waste forms are produced it is necessary to have some information about the temperature build up which occurs inside the mass, because this effect may have some influences on the ultimate properties of the hardened cement paste. This temperature rise cause expansion while the cement paste is hardening. When the cooling process takes place, to the surrounding temperature, crackings and contractions may then occur. Whether cracking arise it depends both on the magnitude of the temperature induced stress and on the capacity of the mixture to accommodate the strain. This paper compares the temperature growth in pastes into two different geometries: one uses a waste container with 3.8 dm3 (one US gallon) capacity placed inside a 0.21 m3 (55 gallons) concrete lined drum, which acts as a radiation shielding, and the other the same container placed in ambient at room temperature. Correlations between the time of temperature occurrence, maximum temperature, the water to cement ratio and salt content were observed