ABSTRACT
Bentonite-based materials such as MX-80 bentonite have been considered for their use as engineering barriers (EB) in deep radioactive waste geological repositories, mainly due to their low permeability, swelling pressure, and radionuclide retention properties. To ensure their integrity and to know their influence, different hydro-mechanical stress paths must be assessed. The European project BEACON (Bentonite Mechanical Evolution), addressed the behaviour of MX-80 bentonite subjected to different conditions including laboratory hydration tests carried out by EPFL (École Polytechnic Fédérale de Lausanne). For the fulfilment of the task, the constitutive response of the model is evaluated, decreasing the suction linearly to zero from its initial value simultaneously in the entire domain of analysis. A purely mechanical constitutive model calculation and no‐flow conditions are enforced to probe the predictive power of the proposed numerical model. The paper presents a comparison between these numerical simulations and the laboratory test data showing satisfactory results.
