DOPAS

Full Scale Demonstration of Plugs and Seals

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

DOPAS aims to improve the adequacy and consistency regarding industrial feasibility of plugs and seals, the measurement of their characteristics, the control of their behavior over time in repository conditions and also their hydraulic performance acceptable with respect to the safety objectives.

This DOPAS project addresses the design basis, reference designs and strategies to demonstrate the compliance of the reference designs to the design basis, for plugs and seals in geological disposal facilities. The project focuses on shaft seals for salt rock (German repository concept), tunnel plugs for clay rock (French and Swiss repository concepts), and tunnel plugs for crystalline rock (Czech, Finnish and Swedish repository concepts). Five different demonstration experiments are part of the project and will take place in Sweden, France, Finland, Czech Republic and Germany. They are in different state-of-development. The Swedish demonstrator will be constructed prior to start of the DOPAS project and will basically provide experience on demonstration of compliance of reference design to the design basis. German demonstrator will be installed after the DOPAS project and will focus on demonstration of suitability by performance assessment. The French, Finnish, Swedish,German and the Czech experiments will address developments in all phases of design basis, reference designs and strategies to demonstrate compliance of reference designs to design basis. The studied concepts will be developed in the DOPAS's five thematic scientific/technological work packages, which each integrate the results of the individual experiments.

The DOPAS project is derived from the IGD-TP's Strategic Research Agenda that points out the topic of “plug and seals” as a first priority issue for joint European RTD projects.

Introduzione (Teaser)

Researchers are conducting tests around Europe on five different solutions for sealing off geological radioactive waste storage facilities.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Geological isolation of radioactive waste is a common practice, but assuring long-term safety in deep underground facilities isolating highly active radioactive waste needs confirmation. There is a need for standardised protocols and overall safety improvement in the use of plugs and seals in geological repositories.

'Full scale demonstration of plugs and seals' (http://www.posiva.fi/en/dopas (DOPAS)) is an EU-funded project that is addressing this by running five full-scale plug and seal experiments in different storage facilities around Europe. They hope that the knowledge gathered from these experiments will improve standard practice in the industry.

Before the experiments were started, DOPAS spent some time defining the concept and design for each experiment. Waste management organisations already moving into the operation phase in near future have experiences in defining the design basis and reference designs. This process was recorded and compiled into reports.

Two experiments have been started in France and Sweden, and are being monitored constantly. The other three experiments are at different preparation stages: one is at the design phase and will be implemented after DOPAS, and the other two in Czech Republic and in Finland are ongoing.

DOPAS will now focus on getting the two experiments up and running and receiving information from monitoring activities. The final outcome of the project will be several reports on the design, construction and implementation of plug and seal technologies.