[en] We use ground penetrating radar (GPR) data to help determine the spatial distribution and the subsurface geometry of clastic injection dikes at the Hanford site. This information will help to improve the understanding of the hydrological role of these ubiquitous clastic dikes at the Hanford Site. We collected 100 MHz ground penetrating radar (GPR) 3D surface reflection data at two sites, the S-16 Pond and the Army Loop Road sites, and 2D reflection data along a 6.9 km linear transect near the Army Loop Road site. The dikes are distinguished in the GPR data by a strongly attenuated zone, disruptions in the continuity of reflections, and diffractions where reflections are disrupted. In general, the data quality is better at the Army Loop Road and Traverse sites than at the S-16 Pond site, probably due to the presence of cobbles at the S-16 Pond site. A high-moisture, fine-grained unit probably causes the strong reflections at the Army Loop Road site and the Traverse survey site. The signal penetration varies between 5 to 12 m below the land surface

[en] Clastic dikes are subvertical sedimentary features that cut through horizontally layered sediments, and they are common at the Hanford Site. Because of their cross-cutting relationship with the surrounding matrix, they have been proposed as potential fast paths from former contaminant discharge sites at the surface to the water table. However, little was known of the detailed hydrogeologic properties of the dikes and detailed modeling of flow and transport through the dikes had not been performed. We excavated a 2 m wide clastic dike at the Hanford Site and characterized it using an air minipermeameter, infrared imagery, and grain size analyses. Field injection experiments were also used to characterize the system. The resulting data were used to prepare a detailed numerical model of the clastic dike and surrounding matrix for a portion of the excavation. Unsaturated flow and transport through the system were modeled for several recharge rates. The highly heterogeneous nature of the system led to complex behavior, with the relative flux rates in the matrix and clastic dike being highly dependent on the recharge rates that were imposed on the system. The study suggests that the potential role of clastic dikes in vertical transport at the Hanford Site would depend on the leakage rate, and that areas of contaminant deposition formed at high flow rates might become isolated at low flow rates, and vice-versa. The results may also help explain the occurrence of complex breakthrough patterns of contaminants at the water table

[en] The purpose of the study described in this report was to generate maps and statistics that quantify contamination in groundwater, based on historical groundwater concentration data for multiple points in time. The results generated from this study include several quantitative summaries of contaminant distributions (e.g., the location of the center of mass of contaminant plumes and the total mass of contaminants in the plume) and are collectively referred to as history matching data. A primary goal of this study was to use geostatistical and Monte Carlo methods that allow one to provide an estimate of uncertainty in the history matching data generated

[en] This report documents two separate geostatistical studies performed by researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to evaluate the carbon tetrachloride plume in the groundwater on the Hanford Site.

[en] This report describes the results obtained from deployment of the Enhanced Site Characterization System (ESCS) at the Hanford Site's 618-4 Burial Ground. The objective of this deployment was to use advanced geostatistical methods to integrate and interpret geophysical and ground truth data, to map the physical types of waste materials present in unexcavated portions of the burial ground. One issue of particularly interest was the number of drums (containing depleted uranium metal shavings or uranium-oxide powder) remaining in the burial ground and still requiring removal.Fuzzy adaptive resonance theory (ART), a neural network classification method, was used to cluster the study area into 3 classes based on their geophysical signatures. Multivariate statistical analyses and discriminant function analysis (DFA) indicated that the drum area as well as a second area (the SW anomaly) had similar geophysical signatures that were different from the rest of the burial ground. Further analysis of the drum area suggested that as many as 770 drums to 850 drums may remain in that area. Similarities between the geophysical signatures of the drum area and the SW anomaly suggested that excavation of the SW anomaly area also proceed with caution. Deployment of the ESCS technology was successful in integrating multiple geophysical variables and grouping these observations into clusters that are relevant for planning further excavation of the buried ground. However, the success of the technology could not be fully evaluated because reliable ground truth data were not available to enable calibration of the different geophysical signatures against actual waste types

[en] The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that clastic dikes could form a preferential flow path through the vadose zone to the water table at the Hanford Site. Clastic dikes are subvertical structures that form within sedimentary sequences after deposition, and cut across the original sedimentary layers. They are common throughout the Hanford Site, often occurring in organized polygonal networks. In the initial phase of the project, we analyzed the large-scale geometry of the clastic dikes and developed an algorithm for simulating their spatial distribution. This result will be useful in providing maps of the potential distribution of clastic dikes in areas where they are not exposed at the surface (e.g., where covered by windblown sand or by construction of facilities like tank farms at the surface). In addition to the study of the large scale distribution of the dikes, a major focus of the project was on field, laboratory, and modeling studies of the hydrogeologic al properties of the clastic dikes and the effect that they have on transport of water through the vadose zone. These studies were performed at two field locations at the Hanford Site. We performed an extensive series of field and laboratory measurements of a large number of samples from the clastic dikes, linked with infrared (IR) and visual imagery of the clastic dikes and surrounding matrix. We developed a series of correlations from the sample data that allowed us to estimate the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of the dike and matrix at an extremely high resolution (approximately 1 mm). The resulting grids, each of which measured several meters on a side and included nearly 4 grid nodes, were used to study the distribution of moisture between the clastic dike and surrounding matrix, as well as the relative velocities that moisture would have through the clastic dike and matrix for a number of different recharge scenarios. Results show the development of complex flow networks that depend on input flux rates and boundary type and that may sometimes mask the underlying heterogeneity. The networks occupy two complimentary states; a fine-textured, high-permeability region at low fluxes and a coarse-textured high-permeability region at high fluxes. Transition between the two states occurred at an input flux of about 100 mm yr-1. At this input flux, preferential channels essentially disappear with the dike and host matrix conducting at similar rates. This suggests that clastic dikes might serve as a conduit for more rapid movement of moisture and mobile contaminants to the water table, but only under a restricted set of recharge (or leak) conditions. However, owing to the relatively high content of reactive minerals, especially clay, that is found in the clastic dikes, the movement of reactive contaminants like heavy metals and radionuclides may be restricted. The field site developed for this project, as well as the data and numerical models, are now the focus of several ongoing studies funded by the Hanford Groundwater Protection Program's Science and Technology (S and T) Project. These studies focus on collecting datasets to support conceptual model development and model calibration, the development and use of advanced scaling methods to facilitate inverse modeling of heterogeneous systems, and the identification of appropriate parameters for predictive modeling field-scale reactive transport

[en] The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that clastic dikes could form a preferential flow path through the vadose zone to the water table at the Hanford Site. Clastic dikes are subvertical structures that form within sedimentary sequences after deposition and cut across the original sedimentary layers. They are common throughout the Hanford Site, often occurring in organized polygonal networks. In the initial phase of the project, we analyzed the large-scale geometry of the clastic dikes and developed an algorithm for simulating their spatial distribution. This result will be useful in providing maps of the potential distribution of clastic dikes in areas where they are not exposed at the surface (e.g., where covered by windblown sand or construction of facilities like tank farms at the surface). In addition to the study of the large-scale distribution of the dikes, a major focus of the project was on field, laboratory, and modeling studies of the hydrogeological properties of the clastic dikes and the effect that they have on transport of water through the vadose zone. These studies were performed at two field locations at the Hanford Site. We performed an extensive series of field and laboratory measurements of a large number of samples from the clastic dikes, linked with infrared (IR) and visual imagery of the clastic dikes and surrounding matrix. We developed a series of correlations from the sample data that allowed us to estimate the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of the dike and matrix at an extremely high resolution (approximately 1 mm). The resulting grids, each of which measured several meters on a side and included nearly four million grid nodes, were used to study the distribution of moisture between the clastic dike and surrounding matrix, as well as the relative velocities that moisture would have through the clastic dike and matrix for a number of different recharge scenarios. Results show the development of complex flow networks that depend on input flux rates and boundary type and that may sometimes mask the underlying heterogeneity. The networks occupy two complementary states: a high-permeability region in the fine-textured media at low fluxes and a high-permeability region in the coarse-textured media at high fluxes. Transition between the two states occurred at an input flux of about 100 mm yr^-1. At this input flux, preferential channels essentially disappear with the dike and host matrix conducting at similar rates. This suggests that clastic dikes might serve as a conduit for more rapid movement of moisture and mobile contaminants to the water table, but only under a restricted set of recharge (or leak) conditions. However, owing to the relatively high content of reactive minerals, especially clay, that is found in the clastic dikes, the movement of reactive contaminants like heavy metals and radionuclides may be restricted. The field site developed for this project, as well as the data and numerical models, are now the focus of several ongoing studies funded by the Hanford Groundwater Protection Program's Science and Technology (SandT) Project. These studies focus on collecting datasets to support conceptual model development and model calibration, the development and use of advanced scaling methods to facilitate inverse modeling of heterogeneous systems, and the identification of appropriate parameters for predictive modeling of field-scale reactive transport

[en] The objective of this research is to develop and demonstrate a general approach for modeling flow and transport in the heterogeneous vadose zone. The approach uses similar media scaling, geostatistics, and conditional simulation methods to estimate soil hydraulic parameters at unsampled locations from field-measured water content data and scale-mean hydraulic parameters determined from available site characterization data. Neural network methods are being developed to estimate soil hydraulic parameters from more easily measured physical property data such as bulk density, organic matter content, and percentages of sand, silt, and clay (or particle-size distributions). Field water content distributions are being estimated using various geophysical methods including neutron moderation, ground-penetrating radar, and electrical resistance tomography. One of the primary goals of this research is to determine relationships between the type of data used in model parameterization, the quantity of data available, the scale of the measurement, and the uncertainty in predictions of flow and transport using these methods. Evaluation of the relationships between available data, scale, and uncertainty are using data from a large-scale, controlled field experiment

[en] In fiscal years 2007 and 2008, the Hanford Site Groundwater Remediation Project, formerly managed by Fluor Hanford, Inc., requested the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to support the development and initial implementation of a strategy to establish and maintain, under configuration control, a set of Hanford-specific flow and transport parameter estimates that can be used to support Hanford Site assessments. This document provides a summary of those efforts, culminating in a set of best-estimate Hanford-specific parameters for use in place of the default parameters used in the RESRAD code. The RESRAD code is a computer model designed to estimate radiation doses and risks from RESidual RADioactive materials. The long-term goals of the PNNL work are to improve the consistency, defensibility, and traceability of parameters and their ranges of variability, and to ensure a sound basis for assigning parameters for flow and transport models in the code. The strategy was to start by identifying the existing parameter data sets most recently used in site assessments, documenting these parameter data sets and the raw data sets on which they were based, and using the existing parameter sets to define best-estimate parameters for use in the RESRAD code. The Hanford-specific assessment parameters compiled for use in RESRAD are traceable back to the professional judgment of the authors of published documents. Within the references, parameters are often not directly traceable back to the raw data and analytical approaches used to derive the assessment parameters. Future activities will work to continuously improve the defensibility and traceability of the parameter data sets and to address limitations and technical issues associated with the existing assessment parameter data sets

[en] An automated code assessment program (ACAP) has been developed to provide quantitative comparisons between nuclear reactor systems (NRS) code results and experimental measurements. The tool provides a suite of metrics for quality of fit to specific data sets, and the means to produce one or more figures of merit (FOM) for a code, based on weighted averages of results from the batch execution of a large number of code-experiment and code-code data comparisons. Accordingly, this tool has the potential to significantly streamline the verification and validation (V and V) processes in NRS code development environments which are characterized by rapidly evolving software, many contributing developers and a large and growing body of validation data. In this paper, a survey of data conditioning and analysis techniques is summarized which focuses on their relevance to NRS code accuracy assessment. A number of methods are considered for their applicability to the automated assessment of the accuracy of NRS code simulations. A variety of data types and computational modeling methods are considered from a spectrum of mathematical and engineering disciplines. The goal of the survey was to identify needs, issues and techniques to be considered in the development of an automated code assessment procedure, to be used in United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) advanced thermal-hydraulic T/H code consolidation efforts. The ACAP software was designed based in large measure on the findings of this survey. An overview of this tool is summarized and several NRS data applications are provided. The paper is organized as follows: The motivation for this work is first provided by background discussion that summarizes the relevance of this subject matter to the nuclear reactor industry. Next, the spectrum of NRS data types are classified into categories, in order to provide a basis for assessing individual comparison methods. Then, a summary of the survey is provided, where each of the relevant issues and techniques considered are addressed. Several of the methods have been coded and/or applied to relevant NRS code-data comparisons and these demonstration calculations are included. Next, an overview of the basic design, structure and operational mechanics of ACAP is provided. Then, a summary of the data pre-processing, data analysis and FOM assembly processing elements of the software is included. Lastly, a number of NRS sample applications are presented which illustrate the functionality of the code and its ability to provide objective accuracy measures