A large physical Mock-Up model for investigating engineered barriers

Research on a bentonite-based engineered barrier for use in the safe underground disposal of high-level radioactive waste is a special multidisciplinary issue. In order to obtain findings enabling the design of such a construction, it is necessary to employ all the available experimental tools and procedures. With respect to the extremely long-term time requirements for the rheological stability and safety of the system as a whole, the results of long-term research have fully justified the use of physical modelling. The most relevant model types applied have been found to be those made at a scale of 1:1, referred to as Mock-Up models. A vertical model of a bench-scale buffer mass test of Czech smectitic clay in the KBS-3 modification (Swedish system) has been built at the Centre of Experimental Geotechnics, CTU, Prague. The model is fully instrumented, providing the continual multiparametrical measurement of all the relevant parameters. The whole experiment including the development of all the parameters measured can be seen on free-access dynamic web-sites (http://ceg.fsv.cvut.cz).