Nevada Nuclear-Waste-Storage Investigations. Quarterly report, April-June 1982

The Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Investigations (NNWSI) are studying the Nevada Test Site (NTS) area to establish whether it would qualify as a licensable location for a commercial nuclear waste repository; determining whether specific underground rock masses in the NTS area are technically acceptable for permanently disposing of highly radioactive solid wastes; and developing and demonstrating the capability to safely handle and store commercial spent reactor fuel and high-level waste. Progress reports for the following eight tasks are presented: systems; waste package; site; repository; regulatory and institutional; test facilities; land acquisition; and program management. Some of the highlights are: A code library was established to provide a central location for documentation of repository performance assessment codes. A two-dimensional finite element code, SAGUARO, was developed for modeling saturated/unsaturated groundwater flow. The results of an initial experiment to determine canister penetration rates due to corrosion indicate the expected strong effect of toxic environmental conditions on the corrosion rate of carbon steel in tuff-conditioned water. Wells USW-H3 and USW-H4 at Yucca Mountain have been sampled for groundwater analysis. A summary characterizing and relating the mineralogy and petrology of Yucca Mountain tuffs was compiled from the findings of studies of core samples from five drill holes