But when sand, dirt and clay wash down the drain, dry wells become compacted and the water has nowhere to go.
In a simulated engineered barrier system consisting of a simulated HLW glass doped with 237Np, a compacted bentonite and water under reducing conditions, leaching of Np from the glass and diffusion of the leached Np through the bentonite were measured systematically.
The quality of these databases has been checked through independent individual experiments; glass leaching, solubility, batch sorption, diffusion experiments and through coupled leaching experiments by using the fully high-level radioactive glass and plutonium-doped glass which were sandwiched between compacted bentonite saturated with water.
The corrosion tests were performed in the presence of water-saturated compacted bentonite.
However, quantification of the water chemistry in compacted bentonite under repository conditions is difficult.
The heater element was embedded in an engineered barrier of compacted bentonite blocks that were water saturated for 35 months before the 18 months heating phase was started.
Due to the high dose rate of ionizing radiation outside the canisters holding the nuclear waste, radiolysis of the interlayer and pore water in the compacted bentonite is unavoidable.
In this paper, the contribution of osmotic suction to shear strength of unsaturated soils is investigated through unconfined compression tests on three series of compacted soil prepared using distilled water and sodium chloride solution.
However, the confined volume experiments, using reaction-cell X-ray diffraction combined with peak calculations (CALCMIX), do indicate that S. putrefaciens has a pronounced effect on the water content of compacted MX80 bentonite.
The results of X-ray diffraction for Cu powder after ESD in distilled water, for as-compacted specimen, and for the specimens annealed at temperatures of 873 and 1073 K in gaseous argon are shown in Fig. 2 and Table 1.
