Implementing a fully-coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical model
Lessons learned from the application to radioactive waste storage
Adrien Haxaire (Plaxis)
Philip J. Vardon (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
Vahid Galavi (Deltares)
Ronald B.J. Brinkgreve (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
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Abstract
The fully-coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) model presented in Haxaire et al. (2013) has been implemented in the finite element code PLAXIS 2D. An application to radioactive waste storage is conducted and analysed. It is inspired by the OPERA research programme, in the Netherlands (Verhoef & Schröder 2011). The study consists of a simplified scenario of galleries in a layer of Boom Clay at a depth of 500 m. The formulation and the implementation is stable and provides qualitative results in accordance with expectation. Further studies, in particular validations based on in situ experiments, will have to be conducted to demonstrate the ability of the model to be simulate the complex coupled THM phenomena inherent to radioactive waste storage.