Brine migration modeling at RE/SPEC

Emplacement of a radioactive waste package in a borehole in the floor of an underground drift in salt will result in an increase in temperature and mean stress (pressure) in the very-near field of the waste package. RE/SPEC Inc. has been involved in five brine migration modeling efforts including the finite element computer code, SPECTROM-58, for the analysis of brine transport in rock salt; stochastic modeling of brine inflow into a borehole containing a commercial high-level waste package; stochastic modeling of the Salt Block II experiment at Sandia National Laboratories; documentation of the SPECTROM-58 code to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission standard, NUREG-0856; and evaluation of the brine migration results in the environmental assessment reports for the salt sites being considered by the Department of Energy