Data-Driven Modeling of an Unsaturated Bentonite Buffer Model Test Under High Temperatures Using an Enhanced Axisymmetric Reproducing Kernel Particle Method
This work addresses the problem of predicting bentonite buffer performance in nuclear waste repositories for engineers and researchers, offering a more flexible approach than phenomenological models, though it is incremental as it builds on existing RKPM methods.
The authors tackled the challenge of modeling thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior in bentonite buffers at high temperatures by integrating a deep neural network-based soil-water retention curve into an enhanced axisymmetric reproducing kernel particle method, achieving accurate simulations of a tank-scale experiment with MX-80 bentonite under central heating.
In deep geological repositories for high level nuclear waste with close canister spacings, bentonite buffers can experience temperatures higher than 100 °C. In this range of extreme temperatures, phenomenological constitutive laws face limitations in capturing the thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) behavior of the bentonite, since the pre-defined functional constitutive laws often lack generality and flexibility to capture a wide range of complex coupling phenomena as well as the effects of stress state and path dependency. In this work, a deep neural network (DNN)-based soil-water retention curve (SWRC) of bentonite is introduced and integrated into a Reproducing Kernel Particle Method (RKPM) for conducting THM simulations of the bentonite buffer. The DNN-SWRC model incorporates temperature as an additional input variable, allowing it to learn the relationship between suction and degree of saturation under the general non-isothermal condition, which is difficult to represent using a phenomenological SWRC. For effective modeling of the tank-scale test, new axisymmetric Reproducing Kernel basis functions enriched with singular Dirichlet enforcement representing heater placement and an effective convective heat transfer coefficient representing thin-layer composite tank construction are developed. The proposed method is demonstrated through the modeling of a tank-scale experiment involving a cylindrical layer of MX-80 bentonite exposed to central heating.