Numerical simulation of radionuclides migration in the far field of a geological repository

Safety conditions associated with geological repositories must be guaranteed also in the case of radionuclides migrating from the near field to the far field of a geological repository and to the external environment. For this reason the migration process of radionuclides and the factors affecting the process patterns have a crucial importance. In the present article, in order to simulate the migration process of radionuclides in the far-field of a geological repository, the groundwater simulation code PMWIN (Processing Modflow) is used, following a methodology applied by the same authors in a previous work. The present case study refers to a non-uniform groundwater flow field and shows the influence of two important parameters, the distribution coefficient and the hydraulic gradient. The results are compared with the ones previously obtained for the uniform flow case and the different scenarios are discussed.