Chief investigator Dr Yilin Gui from QUT School of Civil and Environmental Engineering said bentonite was used in many engineering and Science areas and one of the typical applications was engineered barriers used in nuclear waste deep geological disposal facilities and landfill linear where compacted bentonite was an important component of the barriers.
“Among many factors, moisture variation can induce bentonite to shrink and cause barrier failure; this project aims to develop a model to identify the optimal values of the controllable factors to increase barrier integrity and reliability,” Dr Gui said.
“With advanced molecular dynamics modelling, statistics learning and machine learning, we expect to advance fundamental knowledge of bentonite’s thermo-hydro-mechanical properties which could revolutionise use of bentonite in engineered barriers.”
The project’s co-chief investigator is Professor Yuantong Gu from QUT and partner investigator is Professor R Kerry Rowe from Queen’s University, Canada.