Multiscale Thermohydrologic Model

The intended purpose of the multiscale thermohydrologic model (MSTHM) is to predict the possible range of thermal-hydrologic conditions, resulting from uncertainty and variability, in the repository emplacement drifts, including the invert, and in the adjoining host rock for the repository at Yucca Mountain. The goal of the MSTHM is to predict a reasonable range of possible thermal-hydrologic conditions within the emplacement drift. To be reasonable, this range includes the influence of waste-package-to-waste-package heat output variability relevant to the license application design, as well as the influence of uncertainty and variability in the geologic and hydrologic conditions relevant to predicting the thermal-hydrologic response in emplacement drifts. This goal is quite different from the goal of a model to predict a single expected thermal-hydrologic response. As a result, the development and validation of the MSTHM and the associated analyses using this model are focused on the goal of predicting a reasonable range of thermal-hydrologic conditions resulting from parametric uncertainty and waste-package-to-waste-package heat-output variability.
Thermal-hydrologic conditions within emplacement drifts depend primarily on thermal-hydrologic conditions in the host rock at the drift wall and on the temperature difference between the drift wall and the drip-shield and waste-package surfaces. Thus, the ability to predict a reasonable range of relevant in-drift MSTHM output parameters (e.g., temperature and relative humidity) is based on valid predictions of thermal-hydrologic processes in the host rock, as well as valid predictions of heat-transfer processes between the drift wall and the drip-shield and waste-package surfaces. Because the invert contains crushed gravel derived from the host rock, the invert is, in effect, an extension of the host rock, with thermal and hydrologic properties that have been modified by virtue of the crushing (and the resulting geometry of the gravel grains). Thus, given that reasonable invert properties are applied, the ability to predict a reasonable range of relevant MSTHM output parameters for the invert are based on valid predictions of thermal-hydrologic processes in the host rock.