Technical support non-SLB facility

To support the Greater Confinement Disposal Facility (GCDF) goal, Los Alamos proposes to perform the following subtasks: (1) data evaluation procedures for GCDF experiment; (2) instrument testing and calibration; (3) measurement system design modifications. Two field test locations will be established. The first facility will be at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) where the soil properties will be verified and instrument response will be determined using a pit about 20 feet deep. A second field facility will be constructed at Los Alamos in a caisson 10' x 20' NTS soil and backfill material will be used along with the GCDF instrument packages in the same geometry as the GCDF to duplicate as close as possible the experiment configuration planned for the GCDF. Data from these field experiments and from other Los Alamos experiments will be used to extend the validation of the two-phase, two-dimension unsaturated flow model, which has been developed by the weapons test people at Los Alamos