Particle-Tracking Technique for Nuclide Decay Chain Transport in Fractured Porous Media

Abstract

A numerical technique based on the particle-tracking method was developed to simulate radionuclide transport in fractured porous media. Considered transport mechanisms are decay chain, advection in fractures, diffusion into rock matrix from fractures and instantaneous sorption. The proposed method was applied to some test problems and good agreements with analytical solutions and results by the finite element method were obtained. Major advantages of the proposed method are its capability to treat arbitrary number of components in a chain and to consider the effect of matrix diffusion on radionuclide transport in fractures.

KEYWORDS:

• radioactive waste disposal
• decay chain
• geologic media
• safty evaluation
• fracture
• radionuclide migration
• adsorption
• particle-tracking method
• matrix diffusion
• simulation