AREHS project at the safeND
G.E.O.S. presented the AREHS research project at the safeND conference organised by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE)
From 10 to 12 November 2021, the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) invited for the first time to the safeND research symposium. safeND was an invitation to all scientists to present and discuss their research results related to nuclear waste management beyond their own discipline.
G.E.O.S., together with the co-operating companies TU Bergakademie Freiberg, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and ERCOSPLAN, was commissioned to carry out the AREHS research project. AREHS is an acronym for "Effects of changing boundary conditions on the development of hydrogeological systems: Numerical long-term modelling considering thermal-hydraulic-mechanical (-chemical) coupled effects".
In this project, coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical long-term simulations are carried out, which in particular quantify the effects of alternating warm and cold periods on the hydrogeological system around the repository area. Of particular interest are the effects of glaciers moving across the repository area, which can lead to strong changes in the mechanical, but also in the hydraulic and thermal conditions. These highly complex simulations are carried out for tsalt rock, clay rock and also for crystalline rock over a period of up to one million years.
The current status of the project was presented by Dr. René Kahnt, AREHS project manager and head of the Modelling and Risk Analysis Department at G.E.O.S.. The presentation focused on the large number of benchmark simulations and verifications performed as well as the discussion of the explicitly considered parameters and processes (FEP's).
The project is funded by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management and will be completed at the end of 2022.
More information:
https://www.base.bund.de/DE/themen/fa/soa/documents/AREHS.html
https://sand.copernicus.org/articles/1/175/2021/
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Depiction of the calculated vertical displacement for a salt dome structure taking into account mechanical (top left), thermal and mechanical (top right), hydraulic and mechanical (bottom left) and thermal, hydraulic and mechanical processes (bottom right) with a glacier overburden (Silbermann 2021). -
Workflow with OpenGeoSys (Kolditz 2021)
