PROBABILISTIC MULTIPHASE FLOW MODELING USING THE LIMIT-STATE METHOD

This paper presents a study on the application of the limit-state meth od for probabilistic multiphase pow modeling. The subsurface multiphas e flow and heat transport simulator, TOUGH2 (Pruess, 1991), is combine d with a computer shell for reliability analysis, CALREL (Liu et al., 1989). As applications of the combined code, the site at Yucca Mountai n, Nevada for a potential high-level radioactive waste repository is m odeled under assumed conditions. The probability distributions of vari ous performance functions (liquid saturation, travel time, and flux) a re calculated for statistically described infiltration rate and matrix hydrogeologic parameters. Numerical experiments indicates that the li mit-state method compares fairly well with, and thus can be used as an alternative to, the Monte Carlo method for probabilistic multiphase f low simulations.