Progress with field investigations at Stripa

It is generally agreed that the most practicable method of isolating nuclear wastes from the biosphere is by deep burial in suitable geologic formations. Such burial achieves a high degree of physical isolation but raises questions concerning the rate at which some of these wastes may return to the biosphere through transport by groundwater. Any suitable repository site will be disturbed first by the excavation of the repository and second by the thermal pulse caused by the radioactive decay of the wastes. To assess the effectiveness of geologic isolation it is necessary to develop the capability of predicting the response of a rock mass to such a thermal pulse. Ultimately, this requires field measurements at depths below surface and in media representative of those likely to be encountered at an actual repository. Access to a granitic rock mass adjacent to a defunct iron ore mine at Stripa in Sweden at a depth of about 350 m below surface has provided a unique opportunity to conduct a comprehensive suite of hydrological and thermo-mechanical experiments under such conditions virtually without delay. The results of these field tests have shown the importance of geologic structure and the functional dependence of the thermo-mechanical properties on temperature in developing a valid predictive model. The results have also demonstrated the vital importance of being able to carry out large scale investigations in a field test facility