Laboratory Characterization of Mechanical and Permeability Properties of Dynamically Compacted Crushed Salt
The U. S. Department of Energy plans to dispose of transuranic wastes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a geologic repository located at a depth of about 655 meters. The WIPP underground facility is located in the bedded salt of the Salado Formation. Access to the facility is provided through vertical shafts, which will be sealed after decommissioning to limit the release of hazardous waste from the repository and to limit flow into the facility. Because limited data are available to characterize the properties of dynamically compacted crushed salt, Sandia National Laboratories authorized RE/SPEC to perform additional tests on specimens of dynamically compacted crushed salt. These included shear consolidation creep, permeability, and constant strain-rate triaxial compression tests. A limited number of samples obtained from the large compacted mass were available for use in the testing program. Thus, additional tests were performed on samples that were prepared on a smaller scale device in the RE/SPEC laboratory using a dynamic-compaction procedure based on the full-scale construction technique. The laboratory results were expected to (1) illuminate the phenomenology of crushed-salt deformation behavior and (2) add test results to a small preexisting database for purposes of estimating parameters in a crushed-salt constitutive model. The candidate constitutive model for dynamically compacted crushed salt was refined in parallel with this laboratory testing.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 3321
- Report Number(s):
- SAND98-2046; ON: DE00003321
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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