8.2 Zerstörungsfreie Prüfmethoden für das Bauwesen
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Multi-sensory monitoring and ultrasound for quality assurance at underground sealing structures
(2023)
Within the safety concepts of underground disposal sites of nuclear waste, engineered barriers play an important role. As these sealing structures have high demands concerning integrity, we aim at advancing the available construction materials, monitoring, and inspection techniques within the project SealWasteSafe. A specifically developed alkali-activated material is compared to classical salt concrete. A comprehensive multi-sensory monitoring scheme is used at 150-340 l specimens to monitor setting and hardening of both materials. All sensors are demonstrated to resist the highly alkaline environments. Besides cabled and wireless temperature and humidity of the materials, strain variations using fibre optic sensors and acoustic emissions are recorded over periods of at least 28 days, partly for more than eight months. After hardening of the specimens, further nondestructive evaluations using ultrasonic echo and thermographic measurements are conducted.
Preliminary results proof the suitability of the tested sensors and clearly highlight differences between the tested materials. Particularly, the newly developed alkali-activated material shows lower acoustic emission activity indicating less cracking activity. Additionally, unique ultrasonic methods will enable better images of potential internal objects and cracks at in-situ sealing structures. A largescale ultrasonic system is optimised to reliably detect objects at a depth exceeding 9 m while still obtaining a good resolution. Modelling studies show the potential of further increasing the distance between individual transducer arrays. Additionally, a new ultrasonic borehole probe using phased arrays allowing for beam focussing is constructed and tested. Laboratory measurements at a halfcylindrical concrete specimen coincide well with the previous modelling. In total, the presented safe materials, detailed monitoring approaches and ultrasonic quality assurance methods will help to obtain safe sealing structures within salt as a host rock. The concepts can partly be transferred to sealing structures in alternative host rocks and will also be valuable for non-nuclear waste repositories.
The proposed BAM project SealWasteSafe will advance the state of the art for the construction and monitoring of safe sealing systems for underground repositories of radioactive or toxic waste. During this project, a novel salt concrete exhibiting neither significant cracking nor shrinkage will be optimized for use in the sealing systems. The composition of this material will be based on alkali-activated materials, which are characterized by particularly small thermal deformations during the hardening reaction. Quality assurance and continuous monitoring systems developed during this project will be demonstrated not only for high reliability, but also for resistance to highly alkaline environments and to water intrusion along cables or at sensor locations. A variety of sensors will be used in combination with wireless Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to record moisture, temperature, and, if necessary, corrosion activity within the sealing system. Distributed Fibre Optic Sensor (FOS) technology will also be used for strain, temperature, and moisture content measurement. Ultrasound-based measuring methods will be utilized for the detection of cracks and delaminations. Additionally, digital image correlation and acoustic emission analysis will be used for deformation measurements and crack detection. A novel borehole probe and advanced ultrasound imaging techniques will be further developed to track cracks and delaminations within the host rock in 3D. The surface-based Large Aperture Ultrasound System (LAUS) will also be utilized to detect cracks and delaminations deep below the exterior surface of the sealing system. Although the focus of this project will be on the host rock salt, the resulting technologies will be intentionally developed in a way that facilitates their adaptation to other host rocks.