Some principles of service life calculation of reinforcements and in situ corrosion monitoring by sensors in the radioactive waste containers of El Cabril disposal (Spain)

Reinforced concrete is the most usual material used in engineered barriers in low-level nuclear waste disposal facilities. The record of modern concrete is no longer than about 100 years. During this time, it has been noticed that the material gives a good performance in many environments, however several chemical aggressive species in water, soil or the atmosphere may react with the cement mineralogical phases and perturb its integrity. El Cabril repository has a design life objective of longer than 300 years and therefore, these structures should maintain their main characteristics during this target service life. The potential aggressive conditions that the cement-based materials can suffer have been identified to be: carbonation, water permeation (leaching) and reinforcement corrosion. More unlikely may be the biological attack. Chlorides are not in the environment but they are inside the drums as part of analytical wastes. Vaults and containers are made of a very similar concrete composition while the mortar is specifically designed to be pumpable, with low hydration heat, low shrinkage and of low permeability. In this paper results of concrete characteristics are given as well as the monitoring of the behaviour of reinforcement corrosion parameters from 1995 on the same environmental conditions of the actual waste. This monitoring has been made in a buried structure with embedded sensors. The effect of temperature is commented.