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FRACOD Applications in Nuclear Waste Disposal

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Modelling Rock Fracturing Processes

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Abstract

The development of the FRACOD fracture propagation code was initially driven by the needs expressed by the stakeholders within the nuclear waste management community. This chapter describes case studies in which this approach has been applied in various research projects to improve the understanding of the behaviour of rock mass in the geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel. The projects and associated numerical models that are presented reflect typical hard rock conditions in Scandinavia and Japan. An overview of the early applications of the code is given, followed by some models highlighting its capacity. The FRACOD models suggest that the coupled effects of excavation and thermal loading can be estimated by fracture mechanics tools.

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co (SKB), Posiva (Expert Organization in Nuclear Waste Management in Finland), the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES), the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Finland through the Nuclear Waste Research Fund (KYT), Fracom Ltd. (Finland) and the Hazama Corporation (Japan) for their cooperative attitude and support.

It is emphasized that the views expressed in this chapter are solely those of the author and cannot necessarily be taken as representing the views of any of the organizations listed above.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Mikael Rinne

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  1. Mikael Rinne
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Correspondence to Mikael Rinne .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CSIRO Mineral Resources, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Baotang Shen

  2. GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany

    Ove Stephansson

  3. School of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Mikael Rinne

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Rinne, M. (2020). FRACOD Applications in Nuclear Waste Disposal. In: Shen, B., Stephansson, O., Rinne, M. (eds) Modelling Rock Fracturing Processes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35525-8_14

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