Description

Deliberate or accidental explosions and crashes that might have an impact on a closed repository.

Category

Categorisation as a Feature, Event and/or Process.

  • Features are physical components of the disposal system and environment being assessed. Examples include waste packaging, backfill, surface soils. Features typically interact with one another via processes and in some cases events.
  • Events are dynamic interactions among features that occur over time periods that are short compared to the safety assessment timeframe such as a gas explosion or meteorite impact.
  • "Processes" are issues or dynamic interactions among features that generally occur over a significant proportion of the safety assessment timeframe and may occur over the whole of this timeframe. Events and processes may be coupled to one another (i.e. may influence one another).

The classification of a FEP as an event or process depends upon the assessment context, because the classification is undertaken with reference to an assessment timeframe. In this generic IFEP List, many IFEPs are classified as both Events and Processes; users will need to decide which of these classifications is relevant to their context and its timeframes.

  • Event

Relevance to Performance and Safety

The “Relevance to Performance and Safety” field contains an explanation of how the IFEP might influence the performance and safety of the disposal system under consideration through its impact on the evolution of the repository system and on the release, migration and/or uptake of repository-derived contaminants.

Explosions and crashes could affect the performance of the repository in a variety of ways, such as changes to the integrity of the host rock and failure of seals. Depending upon their sizes and where they are located, explosions and crashes could potentially compromise the natural and / or engineered barriers of a repository. Explosions and crashes also have the potential to transport radionuclides and other contaminants to the biosphere. During such transport, the contaminants would be dispersed to some degree. If they were to occur after other processes had compromised the integrity of the repository and transported contaminants to the biosphere, explosions and crashes may also have the potential to further disperse the contaminants within the biospheres. The kinds of human responses to an explosion or crash would influence the likely exposure of humans and other organisms to radionuclides and / or other contaminants.

2000 List

A reference to the related FEP(s) within the 2000 NEA IFEP List.

1.4.11

Related References