In-situ heating test and thermal-hydro-mechanical coupled analysis in sedimentary soft rock for high level radioactive waste geological disposal

Abstract

Sedimentary soft rock is expected to be one of the potential host rock for the high level radioactive waste geological disposal. It is necessary to develop some evaluating methods for long-term stability of caverns in sedimentary soft rock which is sensitive for changes of environmental factors such as temperature and groundwater. Accordingly, in-situ heating test was conducted in an underground cavern at a depth of 50m for the purpose of improving thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled analysis code, and numerical results were compared with measured results. The comparison between numerical and measured results for the heater's temperature of 90 °C is reported in this paper. Deformation of soft rock during the heating test was able to be broadly reproduced by numerical model considering linear elasticity and thermal expansion.