Euradwaste '08 - EU Bookshop - Europa

assumption that the radionuclides from the waste enter the far field groundwater in trace amounts
only.
NF-PRO, a sister project within the sixth Framework Programme, was finished in 2007. It dealt
with near-field processes in the European disposal concepts. Results of NF-PRO concerning the interface
of the near field with the geosphere and therefore relevant to FUNMIG were extracted from
the final NF-PRO reports. Hence, not only radionuclide fluxes, but generally potential influences of
the near-field on the geosphere are discussed [3]. Potential disturbances include gas generated by
corrosion processes, transport of corrosion products and bentonite colloids and intrusion of oxygen,
organics and nitrate from the near-field into the geosphere.
2.2 Evaluation of FUNMIG tasks
To organise the interaction between scientists and performance assessors (WMOs) an Integration
Monitoring Group (IMG) was established, composed of one representative for each RTDC. In their
role to coordinate the linking of scientific results to their application in future safety cases performance
assessors and IMG developed a tool to evaluate FUNMIG results in this respect:
A thorough catalogue was compiled by the scientists consisting of Task Abstract Forms, i.e., concise
information on one page for each task performed in FUNMIG. Based on this information the
tasks were mapped on internationally accepted views for clay-rich and crystalline host rocks. FEP-
CAT [4] is a catalogue of Features, Events and Processes (FEPs) for argillaceous rocks. RETROCK
[5] was a European project on the treatment of radionuclide migration in fractured rocks within
safety assessment. A list of processes identified by the participants as safety relevant was used as a
quasi FEP catalogue. For salt host rocks the FEP list recently developed within the German research
project ISIBEL was used.
For this FEP mapping the structure of the project was adopted. Three Task Evaluation Tables
(TETs) were prepared according to the three host rocks addressed, namely clay-rich rocks in RTDC
3, crystalline rocks in RTDC 4 and salt rocks in RTDC 5. The work of the two non host rock specific
components RTDC 1 and RTDC 2 was included in each of the three host rock specific TETs.
Figure 1 (upper part) depicts the structure of the TETs. Based on the information in the above mentioned
Task Abstract Forms the individual tasks were evaluated by the WMOs considering the importance
of the investigated process for the different safety cases on one hand, and considering the
progress made within FUNMIG. Thereto, the WMOs used the experience with their safety cases
and connected suitable sensitivity analyses. As a counterpart in the interaction between the performance
assessors and the scientists, the latter were asked to appraise the benefit of their work for future
safety cases.
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