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Fluid Flow, Heat Transfer, and Solute Transport at Nuclear Waste Storage Tanks in the Hanford Vadose Zone

^a Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
^b Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352
^c Energy and Environment Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94551
^d Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545

View larger version (39K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Location of the Hanford Site.

View larger version (29K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Plan view of the 241-SX tank farm, located in the 200 West area, after Conaway et al. (1997). The shaded region around Tank SX-108 indicates an approximate symmetry domain. The locations of monitoring Borehole 41-09-39 and of a slant hole drilled under Tank SX-108 are also shown.

View larger version (42K): [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Approximate geometric parameters for tanks in 241-SX tank farm. The tanks as constructed have a domed top that is approximated here by two straight line segments.

View larger version (34K): [in a new window]   Fig. 4. Selected temperature histories in the SX tank farm.

View larger version (40K): [in a new window]   Fig. 5. Model domain showing (a) stratigraphic units and (b) computational grid.

View larger version (43K): [in a new window]   Fig. 6. Schematic of thermohydrologic processes at the tank (not to scale).

View larger version (42K): [in a new window]   Fig. 7. Locations for monitoring temporal changes: 30 cm below the tank, 0.5 m from centerline (1); 16.5 cm above tank, 0.5 m from centerline (2); at 4.1 m depth, 29 cm from sidewall (3); 30 cm below the tank, 29 cm from sidewall (4).

View larger version (22K): [in a new window]   Fig. 8. Simulated temperatures for base case with tank heat effects at different times (in years).

View larger version (33K): [in a new window]   Fig. 9. Time dependence of temperatures at selected locations. Location numbers refer to Fig. 7.

View larger version (27K): [in a new window]   Fig. 10. Time dependence of water saturations at selected locations. "Above tank" is location (2) and "below tank" is location (1) in Fig. 7.

View larger version (33K): [in a new window]   Fig. 11. Distribution of an environmental tracer infiltrating at the land surface at different times.

View larger version (39K): [in a new window]   Fig. 12. Breakthrough curves for a hypothetical solute tracer that was infiltrated at the land surface beginning in 1955.82. Breakthrough curves are shown on a log scale at different depths. Lines are for the base case with tank heat, while symbols are for an isothermal approximation.

View larger version (27K): [in a new window]   Fig. 13. Moisture transport by means of vapor diffusion at two horizons.

View larger version (20K): [in a new window]   Fig. 14. Selected thermophysical properties of NaCl and NaNO3 solutions, including (a) kinematic viscosity and (b) vapor pressure (from Xu and Pruess, 2001). NaNO3 data at 90°C represent extrapolations of experimental data.

View larger version (31K): [in a new window]   Fig. 15. Leaked fluid distribution at different times (in years), following a 189.27-m3 (50 000-gallon) tank leak with 10% (w/w) salinity in 1966.

View larger version (35K): [in a new window]   Fig. 16. Breakthrough curves of leaked fluid released beneath tank center at different horizons. Lines are for the base case with tank heat, while symbols are for an isothermal approximation.

View larger version (23K): [in a new window]   Fig. 17. Simulated temperatures at time 2000.0 compared with data obtained in Borehole 41-0939 and the SX-108 slant hole.

View larger version (31K): [in a new window]   Fig. 18. Temperature data for Tank SX-108. The data labeled "riser 101" through "riser 104" refer to different thermocouple locations in Tank SX-108, while the curve labeled "SX-108" represents the data used for the base case simulation. The curves labeled "top and sidewall" and "bottom" represent interpolated and extrapolated values used to simulate a variation of the base case.

View larger version (24K): [in a new window]   Fig. 19. Simulated moisture contents at time 2000.0 for different cases, compared with data obtained in Borehole 41-09-39.

View larger version (30K): [in a new window]   Fig. 20. Predicted moisture tension dependence of effective horizontal and vertical permeability for a two-layer model of the Hanford formation. Parameters are discussed in the text.

View larger version (26K): [in a new window]   Fig. 21. Water saturation (a) profiles and (b) anisotropy factors for steady-state conditions at 1 cm yr-1 net infiltration. Two cases with dynamic anisotropy are shown. The line labeled "static" corresponds to the reference case with a tension-independent anisotropy factor of 3 (2 for backfill).

View larger version (22K): [in a new window]   Fig. 22. Leaked fluid fractions at time t = 1980.98 for the case of (a) weak and (b) strong dynamic anisotropy.

View larger version (35K): [in a new window]   Fig. 23. Breakthrough curves of leaked fluid released beneath the tank center on logarithmic scale for an isothermal approximation to the base case. Symbols are for static (tension-independent) anisotropy, and lines are for the case of strong dynamic anisotropy.