Development and Validation of a Predictive Technology for Creep Closure of Underground Rooms in Salt

Because of the concern for public health and safety, when compared to normal engineering practice, radioactive waste repositories have quite unusual requirements governing performance assessment. In part, performance assessment requires prediction of time-dependent or creep response of the repository hundreds to thousands of years into the future. In salt, one specific need is to predict, with confidence, the time at which the repository rooms creep closed sufficiently to encapsulate the waste and seal the repository. Thus, a major task of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Program is to develop and validate this predictive technology to calculate creep of repository rooms in the bedded salt deposits of Southeastern New Mexico.