Event type:
Hybrid, Evening meeting, Lecture
Organised by:
Geological Society Events, Engineering Group
Venue:
Hybrid In person at Burlington House and Virtual via Zoom
Event status:
EVENT CLOSED
Location
The event is hybrid format. You may attend in-person at Burlington House or join the livestream via Zoom.
Lecture synopsis
As part of the Posiva's safety case for the spent nuclear fuel repository at Olkiluoto, Finland, it needs to identify and assess scenarios for the far future evolution of the disposal site. One of the Key Factors considered in the safety case is uncertainty in the knowledge of future earthquakes associated with glacial loading and unloading of the crust and their consequences for the performance of the disposal system. Such a far into the future earthquake may lead to or contribute to a loss of canister integrity, and, through violating L3-ROC-23 requirement, release of radionuclides.
The hazard imposed by the primary displacement on a fracture can be handled by avoiding canister emplacement within fault cores and their associated damage zones, where most of the slip takes place during an earthquake. Consequently, the seismic hazard is reduced to the effects caused by the secondary displacements.
About the speaker
Dr Mark Cottrell is Technical Director for WSP UK Limited. He is an experienced multi-disciplined sub-surface professional who regularly provides technical and commercial expertise in the Energy (oil & gas, deep geothermal, and CCS), Infrastructure (tunnels/caverns/dams/slopes), Nuclear Waste (GDF, site characterisation, performance assessment/safety, & deposition tunnel/pit engineering), and Mining (surface and underground stability) industries. He is also the global Technical Director of the Geoscience & FracMan group in WSP, with a proven focus on using technology to support subsurface characterisation, flow and geomechanics in engineering design, and risk minimisation.