Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

An international, multiple-code benchmark test (BMT) study is being conducted within the international DECOVALEX project to analyse coupled thermal, hydrological, mechanical and chemical (THMC) processes in the excavation disturbed zone (EDZ) around emplacement drifts of a nuclear waste repository. This BMT focuses on mechanical responses and long-term chemo-mechanical effects that may lead to changes in mechanical and hydrological properties in the EDZ. This includes time-de-pendent processes such as creep, and subcritical crack, or healing of fractures that might cause "weakening" or "hardening" of the rock over the long term. Five research teams are studying this BMT using a wide range of model approaches, including boundary element, finite element, and finite difference, particle mechanics, and elasto-plastic cellular automata methods. This paper describes the definition of the problem and preliminary simulation results for the initial model inception part, in which time dependent effects are not yet included.