Benchmark Calculations with COMSOL of the Transport of Radionuclides Through Clay and Bentonite Barriers in a Geological Repository
M.L. Sentís[1], F. Altorfer[1], M. Herfort[1], A. Jakob[2], G. Kosakowski[2], and S. Friedel[3][1]Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, Villigen, Switzerland
[2]Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland
[3]COMSOL Multiphysics GmbH, Zürich, Switzerland
A benchmark study was carried out by the Swiss Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI) in collaboration with the Laboratory for Waste Management (LES) of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in order to evaluate the capabilities of the program COMSOL for the calculation of the transport of radionuclides through clay and bentonite barriers in a geological repository for radioactive waste. In this study results of four different codes were compared. The results of the transport calculations for a selection of key radionuclides are shown in this paper. The good agreement of the results obtained with the different codes is a verification of COMSOL as modeling tool for a geological repository of radioactive waste in a clay formation.
