DECOVALEX Success Story

The +20-year 'young' DECOVALEX project has played, and continues to play, a key role in the development of the coupled THM, and recently THMC, models of geosystems and their applications to deep geological disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. New and sophisticated coupled THM(C) models and computing tools have been developed to study the near- and far-field behaviors of potential nuclear waste repositories under various scenarios, including understanding geosphere responses to glaciation and permafrost. A framework of integrated laboratory/in situ experiments and BMT problems with numerical modeling has been developed, with intensive interactions among research teams of different disciplines and modeling approaches, and applied successfully to large-scale coupled process field tests conducted in Canada, Europe, Japan and the United States. Also, many doctoral theses were completed in the course of this project. Related model results and comparisons have been published in multiple journal contributions, book chapters, and progress reports.

The results of these efforts have been of major benefit to the advancement of knowledge on waste disposal and sub-surface engineering in general, and to funding organizations of the DECOVALEX project in particular. The research teams have been able to share data and results from very expensive long-term and large-scale field experiments, generate new ideas and concepts, raise technical issues in joint communications, and perform critical reviews of each other’s work. The insight obtained in such integrated, cooperative efforts would have been impossible if the teams had worked independently. Currently in its eith project phase, named DECOVALEX-2027, the project is still going strong, with several funding organizations and modeling teams working on several relevant modeling challenges.