The excavation damaged zone in clay formations time-dependent behaviour and influence on performance assessment

Clay formations in their natural state exhibit very favourable conditions for disposal of radioactive waste. One concern regarding waste disposal is that due to the necessary underground excavations and the associated disturbance and damage in the area close to these excavations, the favourable properties of such formations could change and the host rock could lose part of its barrier function.Stress redistribution will lead to the creation of a so-called excavation damaged zone (EDZ) which will be controlled by the initial stress field, the material properties (e.g., material anisotropy), the existence of natural fracture zones or local inhomogeneities of the rock mass and the geometry of the tunnel. Comprehensive investigations at different sites (e.g., HADES, Belgium, Mont Terri, Switzerland, Tournemire, France) have shown that an EDZ occurs in soft or plastic clays as well as in indurated and more brittle claystones. The short-term excavation-induced reaction of the rock during tunnelling, which leads to the initial EDZ, cannot be avoided but is reasonably well understood and the associated processes can be adequately modelled.The long-term behaviour of the tunnel near-field can be significantly influenced by adequate support measures and the time-dependent evolution of the EDZ before the emplacement of the waste and the backfilling of the tunnel can be controlled. The properties of the initial EDZ alter significantly during the transient phase, when the buffer and rock mass are heated by the heat-producing waste and become saturated due to the flow of formation water from the host rock. Experimental results in the laboratory and in-situ clearly show that (self-)sealing leads to a significant reduction in the effective hydraulic conductivity of the EDZ with time, thus reducing the potential flow along underground excavations. Expected long-term conductivities within the EDZ are in the range of 10−10 to 10−12 m/s.Performance assessment calculations for different repository designs in different clay host rock formations show that the influence of the EDZ on radionuclide release is quite limited. It has been shown that even for very conservative, so-called “what if?” cases the very stringent regulatory guidelines can be met.