U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project, under Contract No. DE-AC04-76DP00789
Authors: S. J. Bauer (Sandia National Laboratories), M. P. Hardy and M. Lin (AAI)
An understanding of the thermal and stress environment in the vicinity of repository openings is important for pre-closure performance considerations and worker health and safety considerations for the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain. This paper presents the results of two and three dimensional numerical analyses which have determined the thermal and stress environments for typical repository openings. In general, it is predicted that openings close to heat sources attain high temperatures and experience a significant stress increase. Openings away from heat sources experience more uniform temperature changes and experience a stress change which results in part from a far-field thermal loading.
