| Abstrakt: |
Radioxenon isotopes are considered as possible indicators for detecting and discriminating underground nuclear explosions. To monitor and sample the release of radioxenon isotopes, both independent and chain-reaction yields need to be considered together with multiphase transport in geological systems from the detonation point to the ground surface. For the sake of simplicity, modeling of radioxenon isotopic radioactivities has typically been focused either on chain reactions in a batch reactor without considering multiphase transport or on radionuclide transport with simplified reactions. Although numerical methods are available for integrating coupled differential equations of complex decay networks, the stiffness of ordinary differential equations due to greatly differing decay rates may require substantial additional effort to obtain solutions for the fully coupled system. For this reason, closed-form solutions for sequential reactions and numerical solutions for multiparent converging and multidaughter branching reactions were previously developed and used to simulate xenon isotopic radioactivities in the batch reactor mode. In this paper, we develop a fully coupled numerical model, which involves tracking 24 components (i.e., 22 radionuclide components plus air and water) in two phases to enhance model predictability of simultaneously simulating xenon isotopic transport and fully coupled chain reactions. To validate the numerical model and verify the corresponding computer code, we derived closed-form solutions for first-order xenon reactions in a batch reactor mode and for single-gas phase transport coupled with the xenon reactions in a one-dimensional column. Finally, cylindrical 3-D simulations of two-phase flow within a dual permeability fracture-matrix medium, simulating the geohydrologic regime of an underground nuclear explosion, indicate the existence of both a strong temporal and spatial dependence of xenon isotopic ratios sampled at the surface. In the example presented here, temporally evolving subsurface xenon isotopic ratios are found to migrate across the discrimination line delineating civilian nuclear activities from an underground nuclear explosion in the KALINOWSKI Multi-Isotope Ratio Chart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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