Distilling Complex Model Results into Simple Models for Use in Assessing Compliance with Performance Standards for Low Level Waste Disposal Facilities

摘要

Assessing the long term performance of waste disposal facility requires numerical simulation of saturated and unsaturated groundwater flow and contaminant transport. Complex numerical models have been developed to try to realistically simulate subsurface flow and transport processes. These models provide important information about system behavior and identify important processes, but may not be practical for demonstrating compliance with performance standards because of excessively long computer simulation times and input requirements. Two approaches to distilling the behavior of a complex model into simpler formulations that are practical for demonstrating compliance with performance objectives are examined in this paper. The first approach uses the information obtained from the complex model to develop a simple model that mimics the complex model behavior for stated performance objectives. The simple model may need to include essential processes that are important to assessing performance, such as time-variable infiltration and waste emplacement rates, subsurface heterogeneity, sorption, decay, and radioactive ingrowth. The approach was applied to a Low-Level Waste disposal site at the Idaho National Laboratory where a complex three dimensional vadose zone model was developed first to understand system behavior and important processes. The complex model was distilled down to a relatively simple one-dimensional vadose zone model and three-dimensional aquifer transport model.