The Center

The CNWRA provides a significant, single resource for earth sciences and engineering services to government regulatory agencies, multinational corporations, and small service companies. A multidisciplinary, integrated approach is used to solve a wide range of problems. The Center offers comprehensive services in technology areas such as:

• Waste management and disposal
• Hazards and risk assessment
• Flow and transport
• Oil and gas exploration
• Oil and gas production, storage, and transportation
• Corrosion science and process engineering
• Mining and geotechnical engineering

Waste Management and Disposal

The Center is assisting the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in assessing site characterization and long-term safety for the nation's first underground high-level radioactive waste repository by providing scientific testing and engineering design. The tunnel boring machine is shown prior to entering the starter tunnel.

The CNWRA offers safe and economical solutions within regulatory constraints for problems involving management and disposal of hazardous nuclear and chemical wastes. The Center's world-renowned scientists and engineers support organizations and agencies within the United States, Canada, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, providing expertise in:

• Integrated system safety analysis
• Regulation analysis and development
• Mathematical modeling of fluid flow

CNWRA waste management and disposal services include:

• Laboratory testing
• Field investigations
• Site inspections for regulatory compliance

The CNWRA supplies sophisticated analyses and cost-effective services for the assessment and mitigation of geologic hazards around the world. CNWRA staff members, with their extensive expertise in site characterization, volcanology, seismology, rock mechanics, and hydrology, evaluate potential geologic hazards and develop methods to minimize their effect on the surrounding environment and population.

CNWRA expertise is used to:

• Perform geological and geophysical site characterization
• Evaluate and mitigate volcanic and seismic hazards
• Conduct numerical modeling for quantitative hazard assessment
• Assess total system performance

Numerical modeling of seismic wave propagation provides realistic estimates of ground motion during earthquakes. CNWRA scientists have developed models that reflect complex source zone geometry and wave propagation through faulted geologic terrain, information essential for modern site characterization.

Experienced staff members observed the 1995 eruption of Cerro Negro, Nicaragua, to monitor the development of the eruption and evaluate possible effects on nearby populations.

CNWRA staff members have extensive expertise in flow and transport principles, enabling them to solve environmental contaminant transport problems that affect aquifer storage and recharge, in situ leach mining, pit lake chemistry, and acid mine drainage.

The CNWRA applies its field, laboratory, and modeling expertise to support programs involving:

• Reactive transport and coupled mass and energy transport
• Steam remediation of contaminated soil, rock, and water
• Geostatistical evaluation of aquifer and reservoir heterogeneity
• Geochemical ion-exchange and sorption processes
• Environmental impact assessment

Geological, hydrological, and biological data are converted to numerical form and merged with information on man-made features to allow site characteristics analysis. High-precision data integration supports robust CNWRA flow and transport interpretations.

Geoscientists study natural systems, such as the Nopal uranium-mining district in Mexico, to extrapolate possible transport of contaminants from engineered waste disposal sites.

The CNWRA applies its extensive field and modeling expertise to provide innovative solutions to exploration problems in geologically complex settings. The Center's unique laboratories are supported by state-of-the-art computer modeling and visualization techniques, providing integrated, multidisciplinary problem-solving capabilities.

The 3DStress® program calculates slip tendency and direction, dilation tendency, and leakage potential of faults and fractures, permitting two- and three-dimensional analyses of stress effects on faults and fractures. This CNWRA-developed program received an R&D 100 award from R&D Magazine, designating it as one of the worldÕs 100 most significant technical accomplishments of 1998.

Experienced staff members offer exploration services that include:

• 3-D geometric and kinematic modeling, balancing, and restoration
• Stress analysis
• Physical analog modeling
• 3-D and 2-D finite-element modeling of deformation
• Deformation geothermometry
• Fission track geochronometry
• Diagenetic modeling
• Remote sensing
• Structural geology training

The CNWRA also provides paleo-magnetic and potential field geophysics studies and prepares geographic information systems as required.

As an integral component of SwRI, the Center draws on the Institute's multidisciplinary skills and state-of-the-art laboratories and facilities to supplement its extensive capabilities to perform experimental studies involving:

• Petrophysics
• Deep acid penetration during well stimulation
• Secondary and tertiary oil and gas recovery
• Pipeline corrosion from highly corrosive fluids

CNWRA staff members have developed numerical models for discrete studies of unstable fluid displacement, such as the growth of wormholes and high-mobility ratio flow in porous media.

Sophisticated simulation and modeling capabilities permit the CNWRA to provide a wide range of technical services, including:

• High-speed, high-resolution geomagnetic surveys of gas distribution pipelines
• Risk analysis of oil and gas transportation
• Diagenesis modeling
• Mechanical analysis of underground storage networks

The CNWRA offers real-world solutions to corrosion problems by devising effective methods of monitoring and mitigating corrosion. Using their extensive expertise in corrosion sciences, CNWRA and SwRI staff members provide services that include:

• Life prediction of nuclear waste container materials
• Corrosion and corrosion fatigue sensor development
• Numerical model development to predict gas transmission pipeline corrosion
• Materials performance evaluations in nuclear power plants, chemical process industries, and glass manufacturing
• Numerical modeling of processes leading to corrosion
• Failure analyses and corrosion testing

Using laser Raman spectroscopy, CNWRA scientists study the fundamental mechanisms of corrosion under varying conditions.

High-temperature, high-pressure corrosion reactions of interest to the nuclear, oil and gas, and chemical industries are conducted in the SwRI-developed pipe flow loop system.

Using numerical modeling techniques, field investigations, and laboratory experiments, CNWRA engineers provide effective solutions to a broad range of mining and geotechnical engineering problems. Center staff members have extensive expertise in:

• Conducting conventional and specialized laboratory investigations
• Performing field investigations and site characterization
• Modeling the stability of underground openings in rock, soil, and salt
• Performing seismic, rockburst, and dynamic studies of underground mines and openings
• Predicting slope stability, caving, and dam collapse
• Assessing design methodology and design of underground facilities

CNWRA engineers use laboratory-determined joint properties to develop small-scale model experiments to investigate tunnel stability under repeated simulated earthquake motions.

Specialized Technology and Equipment

The CNWRA uses a wide variety of specialized laboratory and field equipment to evaluate and solve problems involving chemistry, geology, mineralogy, hydrology, and corrosion. The sophisticated equipment and laboratories at SwRI enable the Center to develop new technologies or applications based on existing capabilities.

Among the Center's advanced radioanalytical instruments is a liquid scintillation analyzer, which has wide application to analysis of low-concentration radioactive elements.

Using advanced numerical modeling and design principles, CNWRA engineers evaluate design methodology that enables surface facilities to withstand natural phenomena such as earthquakes, tornadoes, and wind loads.

The all-terrain bicycle geomagnetic mapping system is lightweight, rugged, and free of ferrous parts that interfere with the magnetometer. In suitable areas, data are acquired up to five times faster than with a foot survey.

Data collected around active volcanoes improve understanding of the dynamics of volcanic eruption, enabling scientists to evaluate the probability of volcanic eruptions and their possible consequences to populated areas.

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