ABSTRACT
Accumulation of radioactive waste from different sources, including the high-level waste produced by nuclear power plants, has reached a dangerous level in the Ukraine and elsewhere, and underground repositories of Radioctive Waste (RAW) will need to be constructed. The main direction of scientific and engineering investigations to resolve the problem of safe RAW disposal and storage is to establish the viability of the safe, long-term disposal of RAW in deep geological formations or, alternatively, in deep, abandoned coal and uranium mines. Many of the tunnels in deep, underground coal, metal, and uranium mines developed in high-temperature rock or affected by other factors, both of which result in an increase in the ventilating air temperature and humidity, have existed for many years. Therefore, a reliable method of predicting the thermal state of existing tunnels, which takes into account the heat exchange between the rock and the air inside the tunnels is needed. In any deep mine, the heating of the air inside a tunnel can affect the natural temperature and moisture conditions in the strata and create hot and dry zones around the tunnel walls, which may cause deterioration in the stability of the surrounding rock.
