Technical Report NTB 87-07

Modelling small scale infiltration experiments into bore cores of crystalline rock and break-through curves

Uranium infiltration experiments for small samples of crystalline rock have been used to model radionuclide transport. The theory, taking into account advection and dispersion in water conducting zones, matrix diffusion out of these, and sorption, contains four independent parameters. It turns out, that the physical variables extracted from those of the best-fit parameters are consistent with values from literature and independent measurements. Moreover, the model results seem to differentiate between various geometries for the water conducting zones. Alpha-autoradiographies corroborate this result. A sensitivity analysis allows for a judgement on parameter dependencies. Finally some proposaIs for further experiments are made.