A GoldSim model for the safety assessment of an HLW repository

An assessment program for the evaluation of a high-level waste (HLW) repository has been developed by utilizing GoldSim, by which nuclide transports in the near- and far-field of a repository as well as a transport through a biosphere under various natural and manmade disruptive events affecting a nuclide release could be modeled and evaluated. To demonstrate its usability, three illustrative cases including the influence of a groundwater flow pattern through canisters associated with a flowing groundwater through fractures, and the possible disruptive events caused by an accidental human intrusion or an earthquake have been investigated and illustrated for a hypothetical Korean HLW repository. Even though all the parameter values applied to a hypothetical repository are assumed without any real base, the illustrative cases are very informative especially when seeing the result of the probabilistic calculation with the groundwater flow patterns which is turned out to be possibly important for nuclide release and further transport in and around the repository system.