Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology

Investigation of resaturation and thermal-hydro-mechanical behavior for the buffer of a repository requires measuring the water content of compacted bentonite. This study investigated the relative humidity of compacted bentonites using a humidity sensor (Vaisala HMT 334) applicable under high temperature and pressure, and then conducted a multi-regression analysis based on the measured results to determine relationships among the water content, relative humidity, and temperature. The relationships for the compacted bentonites with the dry densities of 1,500 kg/m3 and 1,600 kg/m3 were expressed as and , respectively. These were then used to interpret the resaturation of bentonite blocks in the KENTEX test.

Keywords

water content,compacted bentonite,buffer,HLW repository