• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.89-103
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• 2024

In the disposal environment, gases can be generated at the interface between canister and buffer due to various factors such as anaerobic corrosion, radiolysis, and microbial degradation. If the gas generation rate exceeds the diffusion rate, the gas within the buffer may compress, resulting in physical damage to the buffer due to the increased pore pressure. In particular, the rapid movement of gases, known as gas breakthroughs, through the dilatancy pathway formed during this process may lead to releasing radionuclide. Therefore, understanding these gas generation and movement mechanism is essential for the safety assessment of the disposal systems. In this study, an experimental apparatus for investigating gas migration within buffer was constructed based on a literature review. Subsequently, a gas injection experiment was conducted on a compacted bentonite block made of Bentonile WRK (Clariant Ltd.) powder. The results clearly demonstrated a sharp increase in stress and pressure typically observed at the onset of gas breakthrough within the buffer. Additionally, the range of stresses induced by the swelling phenomenon of the buffer, was 4.7 to 9.1 MPa. The apparent gas entry pressure was determined to be approximately 7.8 MPa. The equipment established in this study is expected to be utilized for various experiments aimed at building a database on the initial properties of buffer and the conditions during gas injection, contributing to understanding the gas migration phenomena.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.64-69
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• 1984

With regard to the radioactive waste disposal, adsorption properties and migration rates have been evaluated for Cs-137 and Sr-90 with the domestic clay sampled from Cnyang, Sanchong and Mooan. Sorption coefficients (Ksorp) were determined by batch experiments. The measured values of Ksorp were ranged from 8000 to 17,000 ml/gr for Cs-137 of 0.1$\mu$Ci/ml, and from 10,000 to 15,000m1/gr for Sr-90 of 0.l$\mu$Ci/ml. Remarkably, Mooan clay showed lower values of Ksorp than those of the others. This could be explained by the poor soprtion capacity of the quartz found only in the Mooan clay. For the quantitative analysis, sorption isotherm equations of Freundlich type were made with the obtained values of Ksorp. $C_{R}$=18.0 $C_{A}$$^{0.74}$ : Cs-137, $C_{R}$=0.84 $C_{A}$$^{0.45}$ : Sr-90. By introducing the BOX model combined with the above relationships, simulation of underground nuclide movement was carried out. The results showed that the domestic clays could be the effective backfill material for repositories.itories.ies.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.174-179
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• 1991

Patterns of ginseng damage by larvae of Holotrichia diomphalia Bates in spring were investigated in 3rd year ginseng fields from 1986 to 1990. Ginseng damages were more serious in outer areas than inner areas of ginseng fields, which seemed to be due to nocturnal migration behavior of adult females. Damaged parts of 3rd year ginseng plants due to 3rd instar larvae were top, middle, bottom or whole of main roots, and rarely underground stems. Mean inhabitation depth of 3rd instar larvae were 3.2cm, 5.6cm, 6.6cm and 4.9cm in 1st, 2nd and 3rd year ginseng fields and mugwort fields, respectively. Larval feeding damage of ginseng in spring oc¬curred mainly from mid-May to early July and appeared to decrease temporarily when rainfalls increased.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.1041-1046
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• 2019

In terms of long-term safety for radioactive waste disposal, the anionic iodide (I-129) with a long half-life ($1.6{\times}10^6yr$) is of a critical importance because this radionuclide migrates in geological media with limited interactions. Various studies have been performed to retard the iodide migration. Recently, some minerals that are likely generated from waste container corrosion, have been suggested to have a considerable chemical interaction with iodide. In this study, chalcocite and mackinawite were selected as candidate minerals for underground corrosion materials, and an iodide sorption experiment were carried out. The experiment was performed under anoxic and alkaline conditions and the pH effects on the iodide sorption were investigated in the range of pH 8 to 12. The results showed that both minerals demonstrated a noticeable sorption capacity on iodide, and the distribution coefficient ($K_d$) decreased as the pH increased in the experimental condition. In addition, when the alkalinity increased higher than a pH of 12, the sorption capacity of both minerals decreased dramatically, likely due to the competition of hydroxy ions with the iodide. This result confirmed that chalcocite was an especially good sorbing media for iodide under alkaline conditions with a pH value of less than 12.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.19-30
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• 2019

Recent research on the behavior of silty sand tends to advocate the use of equivalent skeleton void ratio to characterize the density state of this type of soil. This paper presents an investigation to explore the physical meaning of the equivalent skeleton void ratio by means of DEM simulations for assemblies of coarse and fine particles under biaxial shear. The simulations reveal that the distribution pattern of fine particles in the soil skeleton plays a crucial role in the overall macroscopic response: The contractive response observed at the macro scale is mainly caused by the movement of fine particles out of the force chains whereas the dilative response is mainly associated with the migration of fine particles into the force chains. In an assembly of coarse and fine particles, neither all of the fine particles nor all of the coarse ones participate in the force chains to carry the external loads, and therefore a more reasonable definition for equivalent skeleton void ratio is put forward in which a new parameter d is introduced to take into account the fraction of coarse particles absent from the force chains.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.105-115
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• 2021

The geological CO2 sequestration in underground geological formation such as deep saline aquifers and depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs is one of the most promising options for reducing the atmospheric CO2 emissions. The process in geological CO2 sequestration involves injection of supercritical CO2 (scCO2) into porous media saturated with pore water and initiates CO2 flooding with immiscible displacement. The CO2 migration and distribution, and, consequently, the displacement efficiency is governed by the interaction of fluids. Especially, the viscous force and capillary force are controlled by geological formation conditions and injection conditions. This study aimed to estimate the effects of surfactant on interfacial tension between the immiscible fluids, scCO2 and porewater, under high pressure and high temperature conditions by using a pair of proxy fluids under standard conditions through pendant drop method. It also aimed to observe migration and distribution patterns of the immiscible fluids and estimate the effects of surfactant concentrations on the displacement efficiency of scCO2. Micromodel experiments were conducted by applying n-hexane and deionized water as proxy fluids for scCO2 and porewater. In order to quantitatively analyze the immiscible displacement phenomena by n-hexane injection in pore network, the images of migration and distribution pattern of the two fluids are acquired through a imaging system. The experimental results revealed that the addition of surfactants sharply reduces the interfacial tension between hexane and deionized water at low concentrations and approaches a constant value as the concentration increases. Also it was found that, by directly affecting the flow path of the flooding fluid at the pore scale in the porous medium, the surfactant showed the identical effect on the displacement efficiency of n-hexane at equilibrium state. The experimental observation results could provide important fundamental information on immiscible displacement of fluids in porous media and suggest the potential to improve the displacement efficiency of scCO2 by using surfactants.

• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.89-102
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• 1996

An integrated model is presented to describe underground flow and mass transport, using a multicomponent multiphase approach. The comprehensive governing equation is derived considering mass and force balances of chemical species over four phases(water, oil, air, and soil) in a schematic elementary volume. Compact and systemati notations of relevant variables and equations are introduced to facilitate the inclusion of complex migration and transformation processes, and variable spatial dimensions. The resulting nonlinear system is solved by a multidimensional finite element code. The developed code with dynamic array allocation, is sufficiently flexible to work across a wide spectrum of computers, including an IBM ES 9000/900 vector facility, SP2 cluster machine, Unix workstations and PCs, for one-, two and three-dimensional problems. To reduce the computation time and storage requirements, the system equations are decoupled and solved using a banded global matrix solver, with the vector and parallel processing on the IBM 9000. To avoide the numerical oscillations of the nonlinear problems in the case of convective dominant transport, the techniques of upstream weighting, mass lumping, and elementary-wise parameter evaluation are applied. The instability and convergence criteria of the nonlinear problems are studied for the one-dimensional analogue of FEM and FDM. Modeling capacity is presented in the simulation of three dimensional composite multiphase TCE migration. Comprehesive simulation feature of the code is presented in a companion paper of this issue for the specific groundwater or flow and contamination problems.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.37-47
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• 2023

The black cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufnagel), is an important crop pest worldwide that feeds more than 80 plant species including cabbage, potato, maize, wheat and bean, and this moth is a typical pest attacking underground parts of crops. It has been known in farm booklets that the larvae of A. ipsilon overwinter in the soil in Korea, but no definitive data exist yet. This study was conducted to evaluate that the specific appearance time of A. ipsilon observed actually in the field could be explained when we assumed that this pest overwinters in a form of larvae or pupae. Degree day-based phenology models were applied for tracking forward or backward to find the predicted developmental stage which developed at a specific stage found in the field. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that an initial population could be established in a group that does not overwinter as larvae or pupae in Korea. In other words, the appearance of adults in early March to April could not be explained by the presence of domestic overwintering populations. Populations that overwinter as larvae or pupae in Korea were able to emerge as adults in June to July at the earliest. Therefore, the group of adults appearing in early spring is highly likely to be a population that migrated from outside Korea. Taken together, it was estimated that the colony of A. ipsilon in Korea would be formed by a mixture of a migrant population through long-distance migration and a overwintering population.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.228-243
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• 2023

Bentonite is widely recognized and utilized as a buffer material in high-level radioactive waste repositories, mainly due to its favorable characteristics such as swelling capability and low permeability. Bentonite buffers play an important role in ensuring the safe disposal of radioactive waste by providing a low permeability barrier and effectively preventing the migration of radionuclides into the surrounding rock. However, the long-term performance of bentonite buffers still remains a subject of ongoing research, and one of the main concerns is the erosion of the buffer induced by swelling and groundwater flow. The erosion of the bentonite buffer can significantly impact repository safety by compromising the integrity of buffer and leading to the formation of colloids that may facilitate the transport of radionuclides through groundwater, consequently elevating the risk of radionuclide migration. Therefore, it is very important to numerically quantify the erosion of bentonite buffer to evaluate the long-term performance of bentonite buffer, which is crucial for the safety assessment of high-level radioactive waste disposal. In this technical note, Two-region model is introduced, a proposed model to simulate the erosion behavior of bentonite based on a dynamic bentonite diffusion model, and quantitative evaluation is conducted for the bentonite buffer erosion with this model.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.77-85
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• 2018

There would be a possibility of uranium contamination around the nuclear power plants and the underground waste disposal sites, where the uranium could further migrate and diffuse to some distant places by groundwater. It is necessary to understand the biogeochemical behaviors of uranium in underground environments to effectively control the migration and diffusion of uranium. In general, various kinds of microbes are living in soils and geological media where the activity of microbes may be closely connected with the redox reaction of nuclides resulting in the changes of their solubility. We investigated the adsorption and precipitation behaviors of dissolved uranium on some solid materials using hydrogen gas as an electron donor instead of organic matters. Although the effect of hydrogen gas did not appear in a batch experiment that used granite as a solid material, there occurred a reduction of uranium concentration by 5~8% due to hydrogen in an experiment using bentonite. This result indicates that some indigenous bacteria in the bentonite that have utilized hydrogen as the electron donor affected the behavior (reduction) of uranium. In addition, the bentonite bacteria have showed their strong tolerance against a given high temperature and radioactivity of a specific waste environment, suggesting that the nuclear-biogeochemical reaction may be one of main mechanisms if the natural bentonite is used as a buffer material for the disposal site in the future.