Grant: Alliance Grants

The cost to Canadians of a completed deep geological repository (DGR) for long-term storage of a historical 60 year inventory of existing used nuclear fuel, and up to 100 years of future high level waste, is estimated to be $26 Billion (2020 dollars). Canada's Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) investigates approaches to manage the country's spent nuclear fuel (high level waste). All countries that generate nuclear energy are actively developing plans to secure this waste for the long term, and underground DGRs are the universally preferred solution. NWMO has strongly supported and funded world-class fundamental and applied research at Canadian universities, for over 15 years, in critical areas of investigation including host rock geochemistry, structural geology, hydrogeology, glacial loading, and bentonite mechanics, for example. In particular, NWMO has supported ground breaking research and development at Queen's University since 2011, within the Queen's Geomechanics and Geohazards Group, focussed on the geomechanical evolution of excavation damage zones (EDZs) in the DGR context, including transformative advances to rock mechanics laboratory testing protocols, techniques, and data analyses, monitoring approaches at numerous scales, creation of numerical simulation tools, and the improvement of predictive techniques for all stages of damage evolution and rock performance. The EDZ is the zone of induced fracture damage within the near-repository rockmass, the primary long-term barrier against the migration of radioactive nuclides. Current geotechnical testing and numerical simulation methodologies, as applied to non-nuclear tunnelling, cavern construction, and mining, are not adequate for the rigours of this application. The main goals of this proposed research program are to continue to advance geomechanical site characterization techniques, laboratory testing methodologies, numerical approaches, and scientific understanding related to EDZs in sedimentary and crystalline rocks, with emphasis on characterization of heterogeneous and anisotropic rocks and discontinuities, and effects of thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled processes and long-term loading (time-dependency) in rock performance.