Award Date

1-1-1992

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Engineering (ME)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Number of Pages

97

Abstract

In this thesis, a parametric study of the thermal and hydrologic characteristics of the fractured porous tuffs at Yucca Mountain, Nevada was conducted. The effects of different fracture and matrix properties including permeability, thermal conductivity, specific heat, porosity, and tortuosity on heat pipe performance in the vicinity of the waste package were observed. Computer simulations were carried out using TOUGH code on a Cray YMP-2 supercomputer; None of the fracture parameters affected the heat pipe performance except the mobility of the liquid in the fracture. Matrix permeability and thermal conductivity were found to have significant effect on the heat pipe performance. The effect of mass injection was studied for liquid water and air injected at the fracture boundary. A high rate of mass injection was required to produce any effect on the heat pipe. The fracture-matrix equilibrium is influenced by the matrix permeability and the matrix thermal conductivity.

Keywords

Effects; Heat; Medium; Nevada; Pipe; Porous; Tuffs

Controlled Subject

Civil engineering; Hydrology; Geology

File Format

pdf

File Size

2580.48 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Permissions

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have the full text removed from Digital Scholarship@UNLV, please submit a request to digitalscholarship@unlv.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Download


COinS