Speaker
Description
A numerical study of conjugate flow, heat and mass transfer by natural convection of noble gases within an underground cavity partially filled with molten rock is presented. The molten rock is initially considered at rest at an initial temperature and concentration. The molten rock is viscous and possesses strength that is temperature and crystal fraction dependent. Under natural conditions, convection cells are developed within the molten rock leading to circulation, mixing and degassing of the initially trapped gases. Furthermore, the molten rock as well as the degassing enhances the conjugate convection flow in the air gap within the cavity. We illustrate the onset of the different regimes and their combined effect of flow, heat and mass transport of different gas species, the fraction of molten rock and their impact on the noble gas fractionation. We also present a sensitivity analysis of the effect of the outer cavity boundary condition on the heat loss and cooling to the adjacent rock formation and its eventual release to the atmosphere. We demonstrate several scenarios of underground prompt releases to the atmosphere using a first-ever fully coupled prompt subsurface-to-atmospheric transport without ad-hoc boundary conditions between physics-based domains or handshakes between different numerical codes.
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