Award Date

1-1-2005

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Water Resource Management

First Committee Member

Zhongbo Yu

Second Committee Member

Ming Ye

Number of Pages

128

Abstract

This study assessed parametric uncertainty of flow and transport parameters of the unsaturated zone at Yucca Mountain and its propagation in unsaturated flow and radionuclide transport using the Monte Carlo method. The random fields of hydraulic parameters (matrix porosity, permeability and sorption coefficient) were generated using the Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) method and used as inputs to a three-dimensional flow and transport code, TOUGH2 developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. By running TOUGH2 for multiple parameter realizations, means, variances, 5% and 95% percentiles of flow and radionuclide transport simulations were estimated to quantify the optimum predictions and associated predictive uncertainty. The results indicated that the parameter uncertainty in matrix porosity, permeability and sorption coefficient had significant influences on the simulated groundwater flow and radionuclide transport in the unsaturated zone at Yucca Mountain.

Keywords

Analysis; Mountain; Radionuclide; Transport; Uncertainty; Unsaturated; Yucca; Zone

Controlled Subject

Hydrology

File Format

pdf

File Size

3225.6 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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