Coupled Processes Project - Participation in Decovalex D-2023 Tasks

The DECOVALEX (DEmonstration of COupled models and their VALidation against EXperiment) project is an international co-operative research project. The overall objective of DECOVALEX is the development of scientific methodologies for evaluation of coupled THMCG processes in numerical models and to demonstrate how these can be applied to detailed and performance assessment calculations. Output from DECOVALEX is published in a peer-viewed journal (e.g. International Journal of Rock Mechanics), and participants are also free to publish their own work. The phase of DECOVALEX that ran from 2016 to 2019 ("D-2019") is in its completion phase. RWM supported the participation of one group (Quintessa) in that phase, working on Task A (to better understand the processes governing the advective movement of gas in two low permeability materials) and Task E (to investigate upscaling of THM modeling from small size experiments to real scale cells and to the scale of the GDF, using data from two field-scale experiments - the smaller scale TED experiment and the 1:1 scale ALC heating experiment - at the Meuse/Haute-Marne underground research laboratory, France). The final publications resulting from RWM's involvement in D 2019 are in preparation. Work funded by RWM that has been completed to date is published on the RWM bibliography , . The DECOVALEX website (www.decovalex.org) provides information of all work being undertaken in the D 2019 phase of the project, and also reports work completed in earlier phases of DECOVALEX. The next phase of the DECOVALEX project ("D-2023") is soon to initiate, and presents an appropriate opportunity as a component of RWM's Coupled Processes Project. RWM will sign an Agreement to participate in the D 2023 phase of DECOVALEX. RWM's technical input to the project will be via the supply chain (as outlined in this Contract Technical Specification). This contract is to procure a response for research needs on geosphere coupled processes.