Drift emplaced waste package thermal response

Thermal calculations of the effects of radioactive waste decay heat on the I repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada have been conducted by the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project (YMP) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in conjunction with the B ampersand W Fuel Company. For a number of waste package spacings, these 3D transient calculations use the TOPAZ3D code to predict drift wall temperatures to 10,000 years following emplacement. Systematic tcniperature variation occurs as a function of fuel age at emplacement and Areal Mass Loading (AML) during the first few centuries after emplacement. After about 1000 years, emplacement age is not a strong driver on rock temperature; AML has a larger impact. High AMLs occur when large waste packages are emplaced end-tocnd in drifts. Drift emplacement of equivalent packages results in lower rock teniperatures than borehole emplacement. For an emplacement scheme with 50% of the drift length occupied by packages, an AML of 138 MTU/acre is about three times higher than the Site Characterization Plan-Conceptual Design (SCP-CD) value. With this higher AML (requiring only 1/3 of the SCP-CD repository footprint), peak drift wall temperatures do not exceed 160*C, but rock temperatures excetd the boiling point of water for about 3000 years. These TOPAZ3D results Iiive been compared with reasonable agreement with two other computer codes