| Abstract: | The lifetime of the Engineered Barrier System (EBS) used for containment of high-level radioactive waste will play an important role in controlling the cumulative release of radionuclides from a geological repository. Essentially, an EBS has two major components: a metal barrier and the waste form (cladding). Since any suitable site is above the static water table, the decay heat generated from this waste is expected to keep the surface temperature of a canister above the boiling point of water for a T random time period. Assuming the Weibull lifetime distribution on each component, we use the conditional approach to derive the lifetime distribution of the EBS. In our model, the oxidization process of the metal barrier (i.e. the lifetime of the metal barrier) starts after this time T and the lifetime of the cladding starts after the lifetime of the metal barrier |
