(GRS 212) Self-sealing Barriers of Clay/Mineral Mixtures in a Clay Repository

Tilmann Rothfuchs, Norbert Jockwer, Rüdiger Miehe, Chun-Liang Zhang

A couple of years ago, GRS performed laboratory investigations on the suitability of clay/mineral mixtures as optimized sealing materials in underground repositories for radioactive wastes /JOC 00/, /MIE 03/. The investigations yielded promising results so that plans were developed for testing the sealing properties of those materials under representative in-situ conditions in the Mont Terri Rock Laboratory (MTRL). The project was proposed to the "Projektträger Wassertechnologie und Entsorgung (PtWT+E)", and finally launched in January 2003 as the SB project ("Self-sealing Barriers of Clay/Mineral-Mixtures in a Clay Repository").