Mechanical Anisotropy of the Yucca Mountain Tuffs
Three series of measurements were performed on oriented cores of several Yucca Mountain tuffs to determine the importance of mechanical anisotropy in the intact rock. Outcrop and drillhole...
Application of Discrete Feature Analysis to Repository Characterization
Rock mass heterogeneity plays an important role in the hydrologic and mechanical behavior of radioactive waste repositories. This heterogeneity is, in turn, strongly influenced by the...
Fractal Characteristics of Fracture Roughness and Aperture Data
In this study mathematical expressions are developed for the characteristics of apertures between rough surfaces. It shown that the correlation between the opposite surfaces influences...
Design and Operating Criteria of the French Deep Repository for High Level Radioactive Waste
The design and operating criteria of the French geologic repository for high level radioactive waste (HLW) were selected for their contribution to operational and long-term safety, as...
Lubrication Theory Analysis of the Permeability of Rough-Walled Fractures
Lubrication theory is used to study the permeability of rough-walled rock fractures. Two idealized models of a fracture, in which the roughness follows a sinusoidal or a sawtooth variation,...
A Probe Method for Measuring In Situ Rock Thermophysical Properties
The application of a thermal probe method for in situ thermophysical property measurement is analyzed. The REKA method (Rapid Evaluation of k and alpha) involves a single-borehole probe...
Correlation of Hydraulic Conductivity and Sonic Velocity in Water-Saturated Tuff
A laboratory study was conducted to investigate the correlation of hydraulic and sonic properties of water-saturated tuff. The hydraulic test used a new rock block testing machine, which...
Field Investigations for Seismic Effects on Mechanical and Geohydrologic Response of Underground Structures in Jointed Rock
An exploratory Seismic Rock Mechanics research program has been initiated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses (CNWRA) to study...
Theory of Matrix and Fracture Flow Regimes in Unsaturated, Fractured Porous Media
The flow behavior of a two-dimensional, unsaturated fracture-matrix system is characterized by a critical flux qf*...
Research Program to Develop and Validate Conceptual Models for Flow and Transport Through Unsaturated, Fractured Rock
As part of the Yucca Mountain Project, our research program to develop and validate conceptual models for flow and transport through unsaturated fractured rock integrates fundamental physical...
Variation of Permeability with Temperature in Fractured Topopah Spring Tuff Samples
Fractures will play an important role in the near-field hydrology of a nuclear-waste package in a mined repository. Our previous studies showed that the water permeability of fractured...
Optimization of RC Frames with Reliability Concepts
Analysis and design optimization are considered simultaneously for reinforced concrete frames. Global displacements were considered as design variables. The nonlinear behavior of the elements...
Efficient Elements for Mindlin Beams and Plates
Two improvements to the conventional Mindlin two-node beam and three-node plate are presented. The first involves the order of the assumed displacement fields. The second involves simulation...
A Visualization Toolkit for Fluid Mechanics
The increasing complexity of both experimental and computational models in fluid mechanics requires innovative techniques for analysis and comprehension. Visual methods have been shown...
Finite Element Evaluation of Thermoviscoplastic Responses of Geomechanical Media Under Finite Deformation
Finite deformation responses of fluid-saturated geological media with thermoviscoplastic solid constituent are evaluated using finite element methods. The coupled nonlinear governing equations...
This note summarizes recent progress in developing h-p adaptive finite element methods for the numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes equations. A brief review of the h-p strategies and...
Singularity Elements for the p-Version of the FEM
Singularity elements have been widely researched and successfully used with the h-version for fracture mechanics problems. This paper gives the results of numerical experiments with conventional...
hpVersion of the Finite Element Method in Boundary Layer Problems
The performance of hp-version of the finite element method in the case of boundary layer problems of convection-diffusion type is presented. The method is also considered in the case of...
A Class of Asymptotic Annihilation Algorithms for Structural Dynamics
A class of time integration algorithms is presented that asymptotically annihilate high frequency response while introducing little dissipation in the low frequency regime. The algorithms...
Minimum Required Lateral Stiffness of Structures
In this paper an approximate method is presented to calculate the minimum lateral stiffness required to insure global structural stability. The technique is based on setting the critical...
Return to search