Meuse/Haute-Marne underground research center – Technologies and techniques for studying gas flow and thermal properties of an indurated clay-rock

The Meuse/Haute-Marne Underground Research Laboratory (URL) is the main installation of the Meuse/Haute-Marne Center. Its research program is dedicated to preparing the construction and operation of a deep geological disposal facility for high-level and intermediate-level long-lived radioactive waste (HL, IL-LLW). The URL consists of two shafts giving access to the drift networks where the physical and chemical containment properties of a 160-million-year old clay layer are under study. This paper presents technologies and techniques implemented in the framework of the gas flow and thermal properties experiments carried out on the Callovo-Oxfordian argillaceous rock formation. Since gases will be produced by the deterioration of the disposal components (packages, packaging components, metallic construction material), knowledge of their production and migration mechanisms in the rock formation (PGZ experiment) are of particular significance for the operation safety and, in the long term, for the safety of the installation itself. In addition, some heat generating packages will entail significant evolutions of the natural constraints at close- and long-range from the packages. Knowledge of the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of the rock formation (TED experiment) is supporting the architecture design of the underground installations and their developments in the course of operation