Publication for the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA-CN-226-34 – June 2015

R. Stoll, J. Greeves, and J. Voss with Predicus LLC, USA; A. Keizur and A. Neir with Golder Associates Inc., USA; N. Saraeva and W. Nutt with Argonne National Laboratory, USA

An Execution Strategy Analysis (ESA) capability and tool is being developed to evaluate alternative execution strategies for future deployment of a consolidated Interim Storage Facility (ISF) using a consent-based siting process per the Administration’s Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste. Application of an ESA approach not only leverages on but also goes beyond traditional project analysis tools. The ESA tool allows for on-going performance assessment of the evolving project execution plan that takes into account significant assumptions, risks, and uncertainties throughout the project lifecycle. The ESA process and tool are used to support the development of plans, budgets, and alternative execution/ implementation strategies for meeting the goals in the Strategy. The project is being applied in a dynamic probabilistic simulation model using GoldSim.

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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences – February 2014

Ðurdica Stojanovic, Emilija Nikolic-Ðoric, University of Novi Sad

This paper explores the impact of time demand characteristics in supply chain on role of own-account fleet in the optimal transport sourcing mix. Multiple regression analysis was used to evaluate the simulation and optimization results, and the historical database of a real trade company. The regression analysis reveals that the certain indicators of demand variability and uncertainty directly impact on the optimal number of vehicles in own-account fleet. Further, the intercept in regression equation for the dependent variable number of own-account vehicles can be expressed as the function of daily demands and fleet characteristics.

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Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Department of Economics Working Paper, ISSN: 1827/3580 No. 02/WP/2013 – January 2013

Jerome Massiani with Universita Ca' Foscari di Venezia and Jorg Radeke of Berlin Economics GmbH

Policies toward the diffusion of Electric Vehicles (EV) received a lot of attention in recent years in many developed countries. In this paper, we review different existing models and present a simulation tool for the assessment of EV policies in Germany. This model, which was built in GoldSim incorporates detailed representation of the various technological, behavioral and economical mechanisms that govern the possible diffusion of EV in Germany.

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WM2012 Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, USA – February 2012

David L. Pentz, Ralph H. Stoll, John T. Greeves, R. Ian Miller, and W. Mark Nutt

The PRISM (Prioritization Risk Integration Simulation Model), a computer model was developed to support the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) in its mission to clean up the environmental legacy from the Nation’s nuclear weapons materials production complex. PRISM provides a comprehensive, fully integrated planning tool that can tie together DOE-EM’s projects. It is designed to help DOE managers develop sound, risk-informed business practices and defend program decisions. It provides a better ability to understand and manage programmatic risks. The underlying concept for PRISM is that DOE-EM “owns” a portfolio of environmental legacy obligations (ELOs), and that its mission is to transform the ELOs from their current conditions to acceptable conditions, in the most effective way possible. There are many types of ELOs - - contaminated soils and groundwater plumes, disused facilities awaiting D&D, and various types of wastes waiting for processing or disposal. For a given suite of planned activities, PRISM simulates the outcomes as they play out over time, allowing for all key identified uncertainties and risk factors.

PRISM is based on the GoldSim software that is widely used for risk and performance assessment calculations. PRISM can be run in a deterministic mode, which quickly provides an estimate of the most likely results of a given plan. Alternatively, the model can be run probabilistically in a Monte Carlo mode, exploring the risks and uncertainties in the system and producing probability distributions for the different performance measures.

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2011 International Applied Reliability Symposium, North America: San Diego, California – June 2011

Damien Willans

The design, construction and operation of large-scale resource projects are now subject to extreme levels of competition and cost, with many projects running into billions of dollars. For this reason, resource companies, bankers and every participant in the design train are now compelled to understand every aspect of risk to be undertaken, usually well before the project becomes a reality. A key element of the design process is knowing if the plant can actually produce the required output – along with a clear understanding where the areas of potential risk might be. Rather than ignoring the reality of failure effects or, more commonly, de-rating the entire design by some “accepted” operating availability number and trying to justify it, companies are now turning to plant reliability modeling up-front to prove more efficient designs, even with the uncertainties of failures well before plant startup. The concept of calculating “throughput” provides an absolute plant (design) model output for given inputs, by directly linking plant flows and consequences to the equipment availability. This presentation describes a project recently undertaken, including the project background, modeling stages and processes, and the successful outcomes provided for one client who is currently undertaking a very large-scale resource investment.

This presentation describes how GoldSim and the Reliability Module were used to simulate the throughput of an alumina refinery, accounting for failures and preventive maintenance schemes, to support facility design.

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WM2010 Conference – March 2010

John T. Greeves and Ralph Stoll, Predicus LLC, John Tauxe, Neptune and Company

Government and commercial nuclear projects have been criticized for the lack of a formal risk-based decision support tool for use in properly prioritizing large projects with significant uncertainties. Predicus LLC collaborated with the GoldSim Technology Group LLC to develop this state-of-the-art process to address this need for both government and commercial clients. Predicus LLC was supported by Neptune and Company to develop the specific example shown in this paper.

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Master's Thesis, University of Nevada – December 2008

Dan Andersen, CH2M Hill

As population growth increases, additional demands are placed on existing highway systems. Reconfiguring intersections and roadways to limit the number of access points to a particular roadway reduces congestion and has been shown to increase safety. This paper describes a GoldSim model that was created to try and quantify the environmental benefits (due to reduced emissions) and the economic impacts on businesses in areas where access management techniques were applied.

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Proceedings of the SimTecT 2008 Simulation Conference and Exhibition – May 2008

David Urquhart and Debbie Richards, Macquarie University

The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) addresses issues such as staff costs, performance and turnover – all of which have a basis in uncertainty. In this paper we employ GoldSim Monte Carlo simulated real options to determine the value of HRM policies.

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Financial Services Review 15, Pgs. 117–131 – June 2006

R. Gene Stout and John B. Mitchell, Central Michigan University

This paper develops a dynamic model of retirement withdrawal planning that allows retirees and financial planners to improve the probability of retirement portfolio success while simultaneously increasing the average withdrawal rate. The key elements of the model are periodic adjustments of retirement withdrawal rates based on both portfolio performance and remaining life expectancy, and Monte Carlo simulation of both investment returns and mortality. The inclusion of mortality in fixed planning horizon models reduces the probability of retirement-portfolio ruin by almost 50%. When compared to fixed withdrawal rate models, dynamic withdrawal management incorporating mortality reduces the probability of ruin by another 35–40% while increasing average lifetime withdrawal rates by nearly 50%.

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Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management Vol. 1 Pgs. 37–45 – January 2006

Peter Trkman and Aleš Groznik, University of Ljubljana

This article describes how the effectiveness of supply chain modeling can be improved by including multiple tiers in the supply chain using a gasoline distribution example.

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Environmental Geotechnics – March 2021

Tony Zheng and Nicholas Beier

Successful reclamation of mine tailings requires effective management of the contaminated water generated by the consolidation of tailings over time. Due to uncertainty in predicting consolidation-induced water release, mine planners often use simulation models to prepare for a range of anticipated scenarios. This paper describes the development of the Tailings Management Simulation Consolidation model (TMSim-Consol) using the GoldSim software. TMSim-Consol simulates tailings settlement over time and the upward flow of pore water due to consolidation. The advantages of using system dynamics simulation tools are illustrated by the inherent transparency of the numerical method to end users. A hypothetical reclamation set-up consisting of an oil sands thickened tailings (OSTT) deposit capped by a sand layer was simulated under a range of initial tailings properties. The simulation results showed that soil water storage in the sand cap was highly sensitive to the initial solids contents of the underlying OSTT. To limit the release of contaminated water at the surface, the initial solids content of OSTT needs to be at least 65% before sand capping.

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10th Australian Workshop on Acid and Metalliferous Drainage (AMD) 2020 – March 2020

Roald Strand

GoldSim is well suited and well used for water balancing and mass balancing (for conservative species). With creative coding the software can be outfitted with appropriate mechanics to replicate solution chemistry controls, such as complexation (ion association), gas exchange, alkalinity-pH relationships, mineralogical controls (precipitation and dissolution), as well as critical thermodynamic effects on activity. This paper summarizes the algebra formalism, database simplifications and general mechanics to replicate specific ion effects, activity model inclusion and general geochemical principles for simulating water quality equilibration in GoldSim.

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– October 2019

Benoît Paris and Ken Esposito (INTERA Inc.)

This paper illustrates the use of PhreeqcRM for computing various low-temperature aqueous geochemical calculations in GoldSim via an external dynamic link library (DLL). This coupling has been successfully benchmarked against examples from the PhreeqC manual and tested on a complex acid rock drainage conceptual case. While being completely dynamic and seamless, this implementation runs nearly as fast as native PhreeqC simulations allowing Monte Carlo calculations to fully propagate uncertainty in transport models. Furthermore, the approach is highly flexible and efficient as it enables the user to run numerous types of simulations without the need to change the DLL, thus saving potentially significant model preparation time. This tool offers mine operators the possibility to evaluate potential mine impacts and make operational decisions in real time using scientifically-defensible mechanistic models in a probabilistic framework.

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Proceedings of Mine Water Solutions 2018 – June 2018

Carlo Cooper, MineBridge Software; Jaco Grobler, Consultant; Miguel Palape Reyes, MineBridge Software

This paper discusses how GoldSim and Muk3D have been integrated allowing for 3D tailings deposition to be incorporated into an existing water balance model. The difference in results between the 2D models for a TSF used in GoldSim and the same models run using a 3D deposition model are explored, and advantages and limitations of this approach are discussed.

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Proceedings of Mine Water Solutions 2018 – June 2018

Paul Ferguson, Christoph Wels, and Alexander Trapp, Robertson GeoConsultants; Nicole Pesonen, Nyrstar Myra Falls

This paper will describe Robertson GeoConsultants' conceptual load balance model and a numerical load balance model that was developed with the software GoldSim. The numerical model was calibrated to daily zinc (Zn) loads in Myra Creek from 2012 to mid-2016, and water quality data was collected from within the mine site. Once calibrated, the model was used to simulate the improvement in water quality conditions in Myra Creek during the future operation of the Lynx Seepage Interception System (SIS) and after the Old TDF has been closed and the Lynx TDF berm has been raised to its final height and covered.

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11th ICARD | IMWA | WISA MWD 2018 Conference – Risk to Opportunity, Pretoria, South Africa – January 2018

Brent C. Johnson, Pamela Rohal, and Ted Eary

Mining operators strive to improve their tools for decision-making about water management to minimize risks and costs related to water quantity and quality issues. These issues are typically interrelated and complex such that interpretation and prediction of system dynamics requires implementation of innovative approaches that make use of observed data and fundamental hydrochemical concepts. We have developed an approach that couples the dynamic systems modelling framework of GoldSim with the geochemical reaction simulation capabilities of PHREEQC as described by Eary (2007). The approach utilizes a dynamic link library (DLL) code to handshake and transfer data between the two programs at every model timestep.

The coupled GoldSim-PHREEQC approach simulates mixing and reactions taking place at key mixing points along flow paths and at key water storage locations (e.g., ponds, tanks, pit lakes). Empirical factors affecting chemical loads can be calibrated to observed flows and chemistry at multiple locations and then used for predicting future water quality as operating and environmental conditions change.

Including geochemical reactions at each model time-step provides an efficient approach for applying a thermodynamic framework for understanding important geochemical processes that affect water chemistry. The approach also identifies the subset of reaction processes that may not be well explained by thermodynamic-based calculations and require empirical adjustment and time periods in response to events such as facility shut downs, climate events, and closure and remediation. The resulting calibrated model can be used to challenge our understanding of the reactions that are attenuating or not attenuating solutes at various site locations and to help understand, predict, and manage water quality going forward.

This modelling approach was applied to a proposed mine site in the northern Michigan (U.S.A.) to simulate various stages of operational and closure conditions to predict the quality of water that will require treatment. The model provided an efficient approach for making robust predictions of treatment requirements in terms of both water quality and quantity as a function of mine operations and closure.

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11th ICARD | IMWA | WISA MWD 2018 Conference – Risk to Opportunity, Pretoria, South Africa – January 2018

Nick Martin and Michael Gabora

A current limitation in modelling pit lake evolution from active mining through closure to optimise management strategies is the separation between physical process and operational modelling tools. To overcome this limitation, a GoldSim water balance model of pit operations is dynamically coupled with a FEFLOW, physically-based, model of groundwater inflow to the pit. This approach can be used as part of mine project planning to provide robust estimates of conditions at closure, including an improved representation of the pit lake system physical response, closure cost analysis, and risk assessment through uncertainty analysis.

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Journal of Hydrology – June 2017

Valérie Plagnes, Areva Resources Canada and Sorbonne Universités; Brad Schmid, University of Saskatchewan; Brett Mitchell and Ian Judd-Henrey, Areva Resources Canada

A water balance model was developed to forecast the management strategy of a uranium mill effluent system, located in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Mining and milling operations, such as pit dewatering or treated effluent release, can potentially influence the hydrology and the water quality downstream of the operations. This study presents the methodology used to predict water volumes and water quality discharging downstream in surface water bodies. A compartment model representing the three subsequent lakes included in the management system was set up using the software GoldSim. The water balance allows predicting lake volumes at the daily time step. A mass balance model developed for conservative elements was also developed and allows validating the proportions of inputs and outputs issued from the water balance model. This model was then used as predictive tool to evaluate the impact of different scenarios of effluents management on volumes and chemistry of surface water for short and longer time periods. An additional significant benefit of this model is that it can be used as an input for geochemical modelling to predict the concentrations of all constituents of concern in the receiving surface water.

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International Mine Water Association Conference Proceedings – July 2016

William Schafer, John Barber, Manuel Contreras and Jesus Tellez

Predictive water quality models are often used to support mine permitting but too often are not used later in mine life to re-evaluate mine performance. Models have equal or greater value during mine operation and closure as a means of comparing actual mine performance to expected performance. Integrated use of models and water quality monitoring throughout the mining life cycle may provide important early warning signs of potential compliance issues and can serve to pinpoint facilities that may be contributing off-site loading. Mass load models also provide a means of predicting the response in a receiving water from chemical loading from the mine. This paper describes the development and use of a surface water mass loading model built using GoldSim for assessing closure success at El Sauzal Mine in Chihuahua State in southwest Mexico. In December 2015, El Sauzal (Goldcorp) became the first mine in the world to be decommissioned in accordance with the International Cyanide Management.

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Report prepared by CRL Energy Ltd – March 2016

James Pope, Aaron Dutton, CRL Energy Ltd

GoldSim was used to model the discharge from the Te Kuha mine site into surrounding environment after water treatment for total suspended sediment. The model utilises climate data collected at the mine site, long term climate data from Westport, surface and groundwater data collected at the mine site as well as geochemical data collected through column leach tests. A relationship between measured data from the site and long term climate data has been established that enables the long term data to be used as input for the GoldSim model. This means that the surface water conditions on site can be adequately simulated to enable sizing of infrastructure and predict downstream impacts. The GoldSim model is calibrated against rainfall runoff data collected in Camp Creek with good agreement between modelled and measured data. Therefore the model will generate surface water flows that represent the intensity and variability likely on the Te Kuha mine site.

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Proceedings IMWA 2016, Freiberg/Germany – January 2016

Geoff Beale, Schlumberger; Toddy Syaifullah and Dadang Saepulloh, Rio Tinto; Stuart Daley, Schlumberger

Argyle Diamond Mine is situated in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. Block-cave mining is ongoing below the mined-out South Bowl pit. In 2014, two major rainfall events occurred: 175 mm falling in 48hrs on 15th-16th January; and 213 mm falling in 72hrs on 6th-8th February. The January 2014 rainfall event caused a short term peak mine inflow of 500 L/s, whilst the February 2014 event caused a peak inflow of 1200 L/s. A rainfall-runoff-frequency model was created to assess runoff volumes reaching the base of the pit. This was coupled with a numerical flow model developed to assess the passage of water from the pit floor to the mine extraction level. The model incorporated rock mass hydro-geomechanical changes based upon the predicted future Life of Mine cave zone propagation. The coupled model was calibrated to the two major 2014 runoff events. The model was then used to simulate a series of potential future rainfall-runoff events and future underground inflows. The analysis was used to develop a Trigger Action and Reponse Plan (TARP) for the future flood management.

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Appendix L of the Black Butte Copper Project Mine Operating Permit Application – December 2015

Mediha Hodzic, Knight Piesold Consulting

The Black Butte Copper Project is a proposed underground copper mine located approximately 32 km north of White Sulphur Springs, Montana. An update to the life-of-mine site wide water balance model has been completed by Knight Piésold (KP) to incorporate the transfer of surface water from the Process Water Pond and the Cemented Tailings Facility to the Water Treatment Plant, with subsequent treatment and release to the environment. Surface water includes direct precipitation on mine facilities, as well as runoff contributing to mine facilities. This letter details the model objectives, parameters, assumptions, and results.

The model was developed using the GoldSim© modeling platform. Deterministic and stochastic approaches were used, and 15 years were modeled including two pre-production years and 13 years of operations.

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Report prepared for Cameco Australia Pty Ltd – June 2015

Nazuha Rosli, URS

This report presents the results of the Water Balance modelling for the proposed Yeelirrie Project, which supports the Public Environmental Approval (PER) submission process, aimed to validate the performance of the Project water management strategy. The water balance developed for this project was first developed using GoldSiom by URS in 2011 and has since been updated to reflect changes to the proposed mine plan.

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PhD Dissertation, University of Alberta – January 2015

Nicholas A Beier

This research aims to assist in the assessment of tailings management technologies through the development of a dynamic simulation model. The developed model (TMSim) incorporates the mine plan, various stages of dewatering including classification, pre- and post-deposition dewatering, and an impoundment material balance including tailings, process water, construction material and capping materials. GoldSim was used as the "simulation engine" for the model. It chosen as the simulation package for TMSim because of its ability to simulate dynamic systems such as a tailings system, balance of computational power with ease of use, and other features such as ability to link with external software. The modeling approach adopted, using GoldSim, will assist the planner to understand the TMS and its boundaries, identify key variables and clarify complex interrelationships.

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Thesis Paper, UMI Dissertations Publishing – January 2014

Wade, Lisa, Montana Tech of the University of Montana

This is a Thesis, describing the research and development of a probabilistic water budget model for a mining and milling operation using GoldSim. The model incorporates climate data, well water supply, dewatering and water entrainment within a tailings storage facility. The issues revealed by the GoldSim model results were of critical importance and their identification will result in financial savings, as well as the avoidance of any emergency or crisis situations with respect to environmental management of water and tailings at the project.

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Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation – January 2014

Burbano, Arturo; Sansom, Stephanie; Kinser, Karla; Rozas, Jose; Corser, Pat

A systematic approach was utilized to design a water treatment plant to treat tailings water at a copper mine in northern Perú. Water to support the mine operation was stored in a tailings pond, which needed to maintain a maximum level to ensure dam stability and avoid overflows of untreated water. The latter are likely to occur during times of excessive precipitation and need to be avoided at all cost, as they may threaten a nearby river used by the surrounding communities for drinking water supply. A GoldSim water balance model provided an estimate of the required design flow to build a plant that would avoid these issues, and process modeling facilitated definition of the treatment requirements to meet the stringent discharge regulations, especially for sulfate, calcium and nitrite. A robust and reliable treatment system including RO membranes was subsequently designed around the model results and incorporated sufficient flexibility to meet compliance of the upcoming regulations even under extreme water quality conditions.

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Project Report, Casino Mining Corporation – December 2013

Source Environmental Associates, Inc.

A site-wide water quality model was developed for a proposed Mining Project. The model simulates water quality in the mine discharge and receiving environment. The water quality model is also used as a planning tool to help select water quality mitigations. The water quality model was built within the GoldSim modelling platform, and was run for a simulation timeline of 200 years and includes 29 water quality parameters.

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EIS Water Balance Modeling Report, Final - Revision 0 – November 2013

S. Buckley, Sinclair Knight Merz

Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) was commissioned by BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance to prepare water balance modelling to support the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in association with the proposed Red Hill Mining Lease. The study was undertaken using a water balance model developed for the Goonyella Riverside and Broadmeadow mine complex operation using GoldSim. This study builds on the operational model to provide input to the EIS.

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Mine Water Management and Treatment, Kuopio, Finland – September 2013

Seth Mueller, Boliden Mineral AB

A mine water management plan was developed to assist with regulatory permitting and planning for a mine in Finland. GoldSim was used to simulate the water management from pre-feasibility through closure. The model accounts for pre and post mining conditions, various water demands and recycling, extreme climate events, and impacts on water quality. The model takes advantage of GoldSim's powerful dynamic and probabilistic functionality to optimize mine operations under uncertain conditions.

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Appendix 1, Surface Water Assessment prepared by GHD Australia Pty Ltd. for Vista Gold Australia Pty Ltd – May 2013

Tetra Tech

A GoldSim model was developed to simulate the performance of a water containment system during pre-production, production, closure and post-closure of the mine's life cycle. The water balance includes climate and runoff, site seepage and other losses, tailings reclaim water, water demands, water balance logic, water supplies and discharge to the environment. This was all simulated under varying conditions and rules as the mine facilities change during its life cycle.

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Water Balance Report for the Minyango Project – April 2013

WRM Water and Environment Pty Ltd.

WRM Water and Environment Pty Ltd was commissioned to complete a water balance assessment as part of an EIS for the Minyango Project. The water balance, which includes water supplies, demands, and storages over the life of the mine, was developed using GoldSim. The model dynamically simulates the mine operations and accounts for site water volumes and quality on a daily time step.

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Reliable Mine Water Technology, IMWA; Golden CO USA – January 2013

Tina Pint, Peter Hinck, Barr Engineering Company

An integrated source-to-receptor model for assessing potential project-wide water impacts can save time and money by facilitating rapid evaluation of multiple design options. GoldSim was used to develop an integrated source-to-receptor model for a mine site in northern Minnesota and used to evaluate various mine closure options during the mine planning process.

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Mini-dissertation, North-West University – October 2012

K.C. de Waard, J.H. Stander, Potchefstroom Campus of North-West University

A case study was used to determine what information and instruments will be required at a gold mine to implement the Waste Discharge Charge System (WDCS). The determining of the point and diffuse discharges require multidisciplinary studies with the integration of different spheres of the environment. To assist with this a GoldSim model was developed. The main function of the model was to determine the seepage rates per day from pollution sources using available information. The seepage rates and water quality data were used to determine waste loads discharged to the environment.

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Proceedings of the 9th International Mine Water Conference, Oviedo, Spain – February 2012

Juan Luis Delgado, Lignitos de Meirama, SA

This paper describes a model built to evaluate closure options for a coal mine, taking into account possible water quality issues.

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Mine Water – Managing the Challenges, IMWA; Aachen, Germany – January 2011

Gareth Digges La Touche, Helen Culshaw, Richard Lansley, Golder Associates (UK) Ltd

Tailings Management Facilities represent a hazard to the down gradient surface water and groundwater environment. The assessment of the risks such facilities pose to the water environment is an important issue for mine closure, particularly when the potential for an impact on the water environment has been identified. This paper will describe the application of probabilistic simulation in quantitative analytical models to assess the risks where confidence in modelled outcomes may otherwise be inhibited due to limited environmental data. The application of probabilistic modelling will be illustrated through case studies illustrating the use of probabilistic risk assessment to appraise differing closure and remediation strategies for a tailings management facility and the use of such tools to quantify the level of uncertainty in the assessment of risk.

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Mine Water and Innovative Thinking, IMWA, Wolkersdorfer. Ch. and Freund, A., p 313-316, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada – January 2010

Brent Usher, Roald Strand, Chris Strachotta and Jim Jackson

Prediction of water quality across different components of a mine site is often a challenging proposition, due to both the technical challenges of water quality modelling and the variability of available data. A methodology of integrating site-specific mine waste characterization results and minewater balances through the use of fundamental considerations and empirically-derived constraints to predict water quality from mine waste sources has been developed. The adoption of GoldSim as visual interface software with capacity for matrix calculations has facilitated the development of linked water quality sub-models for different mine facilities. Fundamental and observed geochemical responses from on-site monitoring, field kinetic tests and laboratory data have been incorporated with Phreeqc and geochemists Workbench modelling to identify the most important geochemical processes across the mine site. Based on the static geochemical data to populate the models, the determined geochemical generation rates, the site specific geochemical properties and the mine-site water balance, the GoldSim platform has been used to realise the conceptual understanding of each aspect and construct a framework to provide mine scale water quality projections. In this way, models have been built to assist in a range of situations from a large operating poly-metallic open cut mine to assess mine waste and mine water management alternatives to determination of likely water quality at a proposed large mine in a tropical environment.

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Presentation at Tailings and Mine Waste '08, Vail, CO – October 2008

Ted Eary, Jody Eshleman, Ryan Jakubowski and Andrew Watson, MWH

This presentation describes the use of decision-support models for evaluating closure alternatives for pit lakes.

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10th International Mine Water Association Congress – June 2008

Przemek Nalecki and Mike Gowan, Golder Associates

This paper presents a holistic approach to mine water management. The proposed approach provides a framework and methodology for integrating different components of mine water infrastructure by explicitly representing the relationships, feedback mechanisms and uncertainties about the conditions and processes involved, using a dynamic, probabilistic simulation method.

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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Environmental Remediation and Radioactive Waste Management (ICEM) – September 2007

R. Kahnt and T. Metschies

Uranium mining and milling continuing from the early 1960s until 1990 close to the town of Seelingstädt in Eastern Germany resulted in 4 large tailings impoundments. Leakage from these tailings impoundments enters the underlying aquifers and is discharged into surface water streams. High concentration of salts, uranium and several heavy metals are released from the tailings. A compartment model representing the tailings impoundments and the surrounding aquifers for the calculation of contaminant release and transport was set up using GoldSim. This compartment model describes the time dependent hydraulic conditions within the tailings and the surrounding aquifers taking into account hydraulic and geotechnical processes influencing the hydraulic properties of the tailings material. A simple geochemical approach taking into account sorption processes as well as retardation by applying a kd-approach was also implemented. The model was used to predict the effect of various remediation scenarios in a fast and traceable way.

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Southwest Hydrology – July 2006

Charlie Voss, Golder Associates; Henri Letient, Compania Minera Antamina S.A.

This article describes the GoldSim model of the Antamina mine that was created to allow different water management strategies to be evaluated to ensure that they would meet regulatory constraints

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Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Acid Rock Drainage (ICARD), St. Louis, MO – March 2006

Tobias Puhlmann, Juliana Esper, and Rodrigo Dutra Amaral, Kinross Gold Corporation; Charles Voss, Golder Associates

This paper describes a site wide water model of the Rio Paracatu Mineração that was developed to a) evaluate ways to optimize the operation of the existing water management system and b) evaluate alternative water infrastructure and water supply options that would meet the requirements of future mine expansions.

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Journal of Hydrology – October 2024

Lloyd R. Townley and Jeffrey V. Turner

Many papers show that water, conservative solute, stable isotope and radon balances can be applied to the study of surface water – groundwater interaction. When undertaken simultaneously, such analysis provides an even more powerful method for estimating groundwater inflows and outflows, i.e. the exchange fluxes that for most people are hardest to estimate. The overarching objective of this paper is to provide practitioners with a consistent conceptual and simulation modelling framework with which to achieve a rapid initial understanding of surface water – groundwater interaction, as well as to guide the efficient and targeted acquisition of field data. This paper makes several important contributions. First, after an introduction that explains the complexities of groundwater flow patterns near surface water bodies, a set of general balance equations is developed using consistent terminology and notation. Second, after focusing on a simple conceptual model with steady groundwater inflow I, groundwater outflow O, precipitation P and ever-present evaporation E, analytical solutions are developed for transient and steady state conditions: one water balance solution is found to apply in all situations; solutions for the solute balance equation are developed for 23 different subcases; a transient balance equation for stable isotopes written in terms of 1+δ is found to apply in all situations; and a new transient solution for radon is found in terms of the upper incomplete gamma function. On the path towards developing the isotope balance equation, we present a rigorous approach, based on coupled nonlinear balance equations for abundant and rare isotope pairs (1H and 2H, then 16O and 18O), using isotope ratios and the fractions of each isotope. Third, we describe a Lake Water Balance Calculator (LWBC) written using GoldSim simulation software, a tool to help others to conduct the simultaneous analyses that we promote; we use GoldSim’s numerical methods to solve the general balance equations, we implement the analytical solutions to demonstrate that both GoldSim’s numerical methods and the analytical solutions are correct, and we also show that the 1+δ approximation is equivalent to the rigorous coupled equations, at least for heavy stable isotopes with very low abundance. Fourth, we describe field studies: we provide three examples of applications of LWBC to short-term studies of Perry Lakes East, Lake Jasper and Georgetown Billabong in Australia; we then describe WSIBal, a simulation model based on the same balance equations and describe its application to Lake Jasper over a 19-year period; finally, we describe R-WSIBal, which evolved from WSIBal, and explain its application to 2500 km of the Murray River in Australia.

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– September 2022

Greg Woodside and Marsha Westropp, Orange County Water District

In 2009, the Orange County Water District completed development of a Recharge Facilities Model (RFM). This model was developed with the assistance of CH2M HILL and is based on GoldSim to simulate groundwater recharge operations for the District's 1,100 acres of surface recharge facilities. The model was developed as water resources planning tool to estimate the total water percolated through the spreading basins and to evaluate system performance under different future inflow scenarios and different system configurations.The excellent fit between the historical recharge and modeled recharge showed that the model was well calibrated and could be used to predict recharge under a variety of conditions. Results from this model were used in a 2015 update to the District's Draft Groundwater Management Plan.

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44th Annual BC Mine Reclamation Symposium – August 2022

R.E. Shurniak, Okane Consultants

Cover system and landform design are crucial components of mine reclamation, of which the hydraulic performance is largely controlled by vegetation and material properties. Field monitoring (especially volumetric water content profiles) of a reclaimed area provides valuable information on a cover system’s and/or landform’s performance and indirectly measure a site’s vegetation and material properties. One of the most challenging and time-consuming numerical modelling problems is calibrating a model for near-surface (i.e., vadose zone) water movement, which accounts for atmospheric, vegetation, and material interactions (referred to as a Soil-Plant-Atmosphere or SPA model), to such field measurements. Previously, establishing inputs for vegetation and hydraulic properties required the model user to estimate initial inputs and then subjectively adapt the inputs while completing a multitude of iterations until a reasonable fit to field conditions was realized. To improve this process, the author has developed a simplified SPA model using the GoldSim software to quickly and objectively develop estimates of vegetation and hydraulic properties. The vegetation and hydraulic properties can then be validated within more rigorous and recognized SPA modelling software. The process can also be tailored to identify potential equifinal solutions, which can usually be eliminated through multiple factor calibration. The results of the model are calibrated vegetation and hydraulic properties that can be used to confidently predict mine reclamation performance. The paper provides an example where this modelling process has been successfully applied for a reclaimed site in the Northern Hemisphere.

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– October 2020

Justin Michael Walls

This research report presents the flow modelling of water through a wetland utilising the Australian Water Balance Model (AWBM) within Goldsim and PCSWMM. The modelling was undertaken to understand the hydrological routing and removal of nitrogen in order to potentially use this understanding to inform passive water treatment systems and emphasise one of the most valuable wetland functions, namely their ability to treat water. The AWBM and PCSWMM results both predicted flow peaks at the correct frequency when compared to observed flow data, however the peaks of the AWBM were generally of a lower amplitude than the observed data. The amplitude of the PCSWMM simulated graph peaks mimic the observed data very well. Due to the better correlation compared to PCSWMM, it is recommended to utilise the AWBM to inform water management at the Wakkerstroom Vlei, although some additional calibration would be required.

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Innovation Conference on Sustainable Wastewater Treatment and Resource Recovery (Shanghai, China) – November 2019

Townley, Lloyd R., Jiang, Huanhuan and Tang, Jinquan

New simulation software has been developed at the Nanjing University Yixing Environmental Research Institute, for use in training, and to facilitate the use of simulation software for improving the performance of water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) in China. Computer simulation of WRRFs (formerly known as wastewater treatment plants or WTTPs) is useful for (i) design of new WRRFS, (ii) design of modifications to existing WRRFs, (iii) diagnostic analysis to understand the behaviour of existing WRRFs, (iv) design of new control strategies to improve the performance of WRRFs, and (v) training of operators, professionals and students. The new implementations are the first complete implementations in many years. This is also the first time that GoldSim has been used to simulate WRRFs. Rigorous comparison with the original benchmarks has allowed the developers to have confidence in their ability to represent all biochemical processes perfectly, and therefore to have confidence in their ability to customise models for individual WRRFs in China, with the same or similar unit processes.

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University of Maryland Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations – April 2019

Padmanabhan, Rahul; Baecher, Gregory B

The Wolf Creek Dam situated on the Cumberland River in the state of Kentucky, United States is a multipurpose dam generating hydroelectricity, providing flood risk reduction, supporting year-round navigation on the lower Cumberland River, and it creating Lake Cumberland for recreation and water supply. The latter is a popular tourist attraction. Because of piping and internal erosion problems in the dam's foundation, it is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) top-priority structure. This thesis experiments with and tests the applicability of a stochastic simulation of the dam using historical inflow data based on a model built on GoldSim™. The model uses standard operating rules of the Dam to spot possible failures to the turbines that could affect the performance of the dam. In addition, the model simulates the behavior of the dam 50 years in to the future during which time the components reach their close to their maximum life. Results of the study suggest that simulation models of this type may serve to provide information for reliability-based maintenance strategies, and to help identify adverse patterns of dam performance which may be addressed through asset management.

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Geoscience Frontiers – March 2019

James Andrew Griffiths, Fangfang Zhu, Faith Ka Shun Chan, David Laurence Higgitt

Urban drainage systems in coastal cities in SE China are characterized by often complex canal and sluice-gate systems that are designed to safely drain pluvial flooding whilst preventing tidal inundation. However, the risk of coastal flooding in the region is expected to increase over the next 50–100 years, as urban areas continue to expand and sea-levels are expected to rise. To assess the impact of projected sea-level rise on this type of urban drainage system, a one-dimensional model and decision support tool was developed using GoldSim. The model indicated that although sea-level rise represents a significant challenge, flood probability will continue to be most influenced by rainfall. Events that are significant enough to cause flooding will most likely be minimally impacted by changes to the tidal frame. However, it was found that a sea-level rise of up to 1.2 m by 2010 would result in increased drainage times and higher volumes of over-topping when flooding occurs.

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Hydrological Sciences Journal – October 2018

Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, Alfred J. Kalyanapu, Jason R. Lillywhite & Gina L. Tonn

This study presents a probabilistic framework to evaluate the impact of uncertainty of design rainfall depth and temporal pattern as well as antecedent moisture condition (AMC) on design hydrograph attributes – peak, time to peak, duration and volume, as well as falling and rising limb slopes – using an event-based hydrological model in the Swannanoa River watershed in North Carolina, USA. Of the six hydrograph attributes, falling limb slope is the most sensitive to the aforementioned uncertainties, while duration is the least sensitive. In general, the uncertainty of hydrograph attributes decreases in higher recurrence intervals. Our multivariate analysis revealed that in most of the return periods, AMC is the most important driver for peak, duration and volume, while time to peak and falling limb slope are most influenced by rainfall pattern. In higher return periods, the importance of rainfall depth and pattern increases, while the importance of AMC decreases.

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Water New Zealand Conference – September 2018

James Blyth

New Zealand is facing increasing pressures on our water supplies, from both population growth and abstraction for agricultural and industrial development. The general public is widely aware of water related issues and sustainable use of our water resources is not only a goal for many people, but is requirement under the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM).

Holistic modelling of water supplies using software such as GoldSim can provide a more detailed understanding of the risks and uncertainties that a site, town or city may face under a range of scenarios, such as extreme droughts or random infrastructure failures during peak demand periods. These modelling approaches of the whole system can help site managers and councils plan into the future, catering for greater demand by optimizing their system with a targeted focus on the areas that pose the biggest risk or have the best cost/benefit relationship for improving resilience.

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Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation – January 2017

Schlaman, James C; Johnson, Danny

In 2015, the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (District) initiated the 2017 Water Resource Management Plan (Plan). The Plan presents an integrated approach to water resource management for the 15-county District. The Plan brings together a comprehensive and consolidated approach for Water Supply and Conservation, Wastewater Management and Watershed Management for the region. It describes existing conditions and projects future conditions of the region's water resources and its water, wastewater and watershed management infrastructure. The Plan is driven by science, data and good stewardship, and it promotes the protection of water resources for the purposes of supply, quality and recreation in the immediate and downstream region. The Plan prescribes water resource management strategies that support the region's economic, environmental and social well-being. To help develop the plan, an integrated GoldSim model was developed and utilized to show tradeoffs and benefits of various water plan strategies and implementation actions. This paper serves to summarize the modeling approach and how it was leveraged to support the water planning effort.

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Sustainability 2017, 9, 1735 – January 2017

Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, Virginia Tech; Alfred J. Kalyanapu, Tennessee Technological University; and Eun-Sung Chung, Seoul National University of Science and Technology

An integrated framework is presented for sustainability-based flood hazard mapping of the Swannanoa River watershed in the state of North Carolina, U.S. The framework uses a hydrologic model for rainfall–runoff transformation, a two-dimensional unsteady hydraulic model flood simulation and a GIS-based multi-criteria decision-making technique for flood hazard mapping. Economic, social, and environmental flood hazards are taken into account. The importance of each hazard is quantified through a survey to the experts. Utilizing the proposed framework, sustainability-based flood hazard mapping is performed for the 100-year design event. As a result, the overall flood hazard is provided in each geographic location. The sensitivity of the overall hazard with respect to the weights of the three hazard components were also investigated. While the conventional flood management approach is to assess the environmental impacts of mitigation measures after a set of feasible options are selected, the presented framework incorporates the environmental impacts into the analysis concurrently with the economic and social influences. Thereby, it provides a more sustainable perspective of flood management and can greatly help the decision makers to make better-informed decisions by clearly understanding the impacts of flooding on economy, society and environment.

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Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software, Vol. 86, Pgs. 248–263, 1364-8152/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. – December 2016

Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, Alfred J. Kalyanapu, Brantley A. Thames, Jason Lillywhite

This study presents a probabilistic framework to simulate a dam breach and evaluates the impact of using four empirical dam breach prediction methods on breach parameters (i.e., geometry and timing) and outflow hydrograph attributes (i.e., time to peak, hydrograph duration and peak). Mean values and percentiles of breach parameters and outflow hydrograph attributes are compared for hypothetical overtopping failure of Burnett Dam in the state of North Carolina, USA. Furthermore, utilizing the probabilistic framework of GoldSim, the least and most uncertain methods alongside those giving the most critical value are identified for these parameters. The multivariate analysis also indicates that lone use of breach parameters is not necessarily sufficient to characterize outflow hydrograph attributes. However, timing characteristic of the breach is generally a more important driver than its geometric features.

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Phd Dissertation, University of Utah – August 2016

Erfan Goharian

In this dissertation, a new comprehensive integrated modeling and performance assessment framework is offered. First, a new approach is designed to assess vulnerability of a water system based on important factors including exposure, sensitivity, severity, potential severity, social vulnerability, and adaptive capacity. Then, instead of an individual metric, the joint probability distribution of reliability and vulnerability based on copula function is developed to estimate a new index, the Water System Performance Index (WSPI), to evaluate the reliability and vulnerability of a water system simultaneously. To test the effectiveness of the framework and demonstrate the advances of the new performance index, a practical application is conducted for the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities (SLCDPU) water system. For this purpose, an integrated water resource management (IWRM) model is developed using system dynamics approach for the case study. Management alternatives are incorporated into the model using a decision support tool designed for use by water managers and stakeholders. In terms of water management decision making, the final results of this dissertation indicate centralized water storage solutions improve water system performance better than rainwater harvesting for the Salt Lake City case study.

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Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000738. © 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers – January 2016

Erfan Goharian, Steven J. Burian, Jason Lillywhite, and Ryan Hile

The combined actions of natural and human factors change the timing and availability of water resources and, correspondingly, water demand in metropolitan areas. This leads to an imbalance between supply and demand resulting in increased vulnerability of water supply systems. Accordingly, methods for systematic analysis and multifactor assessment are needed to estimate the vulnerability of individual components in an integrated water supply system. This paper introduces a new approach to comprehensively assess vulnerability by integrating water resource system characteristics with factors representing exposure, sensitivity, severity, potential severity, social vulnerability, and adaptive capacity. The effectiveness and advantages of the proposed approach are checked using an investigation of the water supply system of Salt Lake City (SLC), Utah. First, an integrated water resource model was developed using GoldSim to allocate water from different sources in SLC among designated demand points. The model contains individual simulation modules with representative interconnections among the natural hydroclimate system, built water infrastructure, and institutional decision making. The results of the analysis illustrate that basing vulnerability on a sole factor may lead to insufficient understanding and, hence, inefficient management of the system. The new vulnerability index and assessment approach was able to identify the most vulnerable water sources in the SLC integrated water supply system. In conclusion, use of a more comprehensive approach to simulate the system behavior and estimate vulnerability provides more guidance for decision makers to detect vulnerable components of the system and ameliorate decision making.

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Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 2015DOI: 10.1061/ (ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000579. © 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers. – November 2015

Erfan Goharian, S.M.ASCE; Steven J. Burian, M.ASCE; Courtenay Strong with Univ. of Utah; Tim Bardsley with Western Water Assessment

In response to climate change, vulnerability assessment of water resources systems is typically performed based on quantifying the severity of the failure. This paper introduces an approach to assess vulnerability that incorporates a set of new factors. The method is demonstrated with a case study of a reservoir system in Salt Lake City using an integrated modeling framework composed of a hydrologic model and a systems model driven by temperature and precipitation data for a 30-year historical (1981–2010) period. The climate of the selected future (2036–2065) simulation periods were represented by five combinations of warm or hot, wet or dry, and central tendency projections derived from the World Climate Research Programme's (WCRP's) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5. The results of the analysis illustrate that basing vulnerability on severity alone may lead to an incorrect quantification of the system vulnerability. In this study, a typical vulnerability metric (severity) incorrectly provides low magnitudes under the projected future warm-wet climate condition. The proposed new metric correctly indicates the vulnerability to be high because it accounts for additional factors. To further explore the new factors, a sensitivity analysis (SA) was performed to show the impact and importance of the factors on the vulnerability of the system under different climate conditions. The new metric provides a comprehensive representation of system vulnerability under climate change scenarios, which can help decision makers and stakeholders evaluate system operation and infrastructure changes for climate adaptation.

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American Journal of Environmental Sciences – October 2015

Chris York, Erfan Goharian and Steven J. Burian, University of Utah

This study evaluated impacts of Green Infrastructure (GI) as a stormwater management practice on return flows and the further Implications of climate variability. The goal was to create a model to explore the impacts that bioretention and Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) representing GI had using GoldSim and Stormwater Management Modeling (SWMM) software. The software was used to represent impacts that climate variability individually and combined, may have on downstream stakeholders and receiving water systems in Salt Lake city, Utah, USA. Primary stakeholders included downstream water rights users, Farmington Bay waterfowl management area and the migratory birds that rely on Farmington Bay and the advocates that represent them. The steps to reach this goal were broken down incrementally to: (1) Characterize daily inflows to Farmington Bay, (2) Provide daily inflows from natural and urban runoff to the Jordan river, (3) Create a daily water balance model of Farmington Bay, (4) Demonstrate the model with and without stormwater GI and climate variability scenarios and (5) Determine trends of inflow to the Jordan River, duck clubs and Farmington Bay under various scenarios. For this case study the implications of climate variability on the water system are much greater than implementing GI.

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World Environmental and Water Resources Congress – May 2015

Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf and Alfred J. Kalyanapu, Tennessee Tech University

This study investigates the impact of streamflow temporal variation on annual overtopping risk of Burnett Dam using a risk and reliability analysis approach. Overtopping risk is defined as the probability of reservoir inflow exceeding the spillway capacity. A performance function is used to determine the annual overtopping risk, which has two primary inputs: 1) dam resistance: total spillway capacity; and 2) maximum load: highest inflow discharge. Highest inflow discharge is determined by analysis of the peak streamflow records of a gaging station upstream of the dam. At each year, the highest peak streamflow is routed through the dam upstream channel using a calibrated hydrologic model. Taking the routed inflow, the overtopping risk is determined in each year. Temporal change in the overtopping risk is finally investigated in 1989-2013 period using Mann-Kendall Test.

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Journal of The American Water Resources Association, Volume 51, Issue 1, pages 33-46 – February 2015

Ryan R. Morrison Postdoctoral Fellow and Mark C. Stone Assistant Professor

Providing environmental flows is increasingly a management obligation in many water resource systems. Evaluating the impacts of environmental flow alternatives on other water uses in a basin can be a challenge, especially when collaborating with stakeholders. GoldSim was used to construct and perform system dynamics simulation to assess the impacts of four environmental flow alternatives in the Rio Chama, New Mexico. Compared to other system dynamics modeling software, GoldSim provided the unique capability of allowing model variables to be sampled using Monte Carlo sampling. The model was developed to examine impacts of each alternative on reservoir storage and releases, hydropower production and revenue, and whitewater boating access. Results from the model indicate that the proposed flow recommendations on the Rio Chama will generally decrease annual reservoir storage, increase median flows, and have minimal impacts on hydropower production and whitewater rafting on the system. The Rio Chama case study is a promising example of how SD modeling can be used in the early stages of environmental flow studies and why it is compatible with collaborative modeling.

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Verterra Ecological Engineering Projects Showcase – January 2015

Verterra Ecological Engineering

The Department of Water Western Australia required a means to investigate, assess and recommend the most viable option for a local water supply scheme incorporating community dams and associated infrastructure. To meet the their requirements, Verterra constructed a Goldsim model to illustrate expected grower behaviour and likely cost of water from a range of 1-2 GL community dam options. GoldSim is dynamic probabilistic software model which can be used to develop a water management framework and methodology for integrating different components of water infrastructure while accounting for natural variability in rainfall and streamflow. This probabilistic modelling approach enabled a risk analysis to be incorporated into the evaluation of potential environmental and economic impacts. The scenario testing and optimisation model developed by Verterra allowed the client to undertake preliminary exploration of the effect of a range of different configurations and usage behaviours of the proposed community dam system, and to explore the reliability and cost of water.

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Acta Electrotechnica et Informatica, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2015, 57–61, DOI: 10.15546/aeei-2015-0019 – January 2015

Miroslav Mikita, Michael Kolcun; Department of Electric Power Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Technical University of Kosice, Letna 9, 042 00 Kosice, Slovak Republic

The Pumped hydroelectric power plants are very suitable way to avoid the unpredictable imbalance in power generation, but its construction is very expensive and reliability is very long-term. Every single pumped hydroelectric power plant is like rechargeable battery which can generate electricity when there is a deficiency in power generation and also can consume when there is conversely reserve on power generation. That's the main reason why is important to build such sources of energy. When you create new project of every power plant that prediction of it's performance is highly important and simulation software is useful in this cases. For good prediction is also important true data in simulation and knowledge about locality of this project, because every project varies from other similar projects. For obtaining optimal conditions of using pumped hydroelectric power plant is needed to find best algorithm of generating or consuming the electricity. GoldSim was used to develop this pumped storage model.

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Report Submitted to Gisborne District Council, New Zealand – August 2014

Golder Associates

The Gisborne District Council (GDC) has identified long term water availability in the Poverty Bay area as being a potentially limiting factor in future regional development. A substantial proportion of the water used for irrigation across the Poverty Bay Flats is derived from groundwater. Reviews of groundwater levels in the Poverty Bay Flats area have identified declining groundwater pressure trends as an environmental and water supply issue. These trends are linked to increasing groundwater abstraction for irrigation purposes.

The GDC is investigating water management options to stabilize groundwater pressure trends and increase water supply reliability in the Poverty Bay area. One option under investigation is the use of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR), to replenish and sustain groundwater yields from aquifers beneath the Poverty Bay Flats. Golder Associates (NZ) Limited (Golder) was commissioned by GDC to undertake a feasibility assessment for a MAR program.

The MAR feasibility assessment carried out by Golder included an evaluation of the challenges and needs for Poverty Bay water management, including source water options, direct injection and surface infiltration options and water quality management requirements.

A Groundwater Management Tool (GMT), incorporating a calibrated water balance model for the Makauri Aquifer, has been developed to a demonstration stage for the GDC using the Goldsim software package. The GMT is intended to support the GDC in assessing options for the management and replenishment of the Poverty Bay Flats groundwater supplies, within the framework of water management planning for the region.

Golder's feasibility analysis shows a groundwater replenishment scheme has the potential to:

• Stabilise current downward trends in groundwater levels within the Makauri Aquifer
• Restore groundwater pressures within the aquifer
• Enable the establishment of a sustainable yield for the aquifer that exceeds current usage

In summary, Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) has the potential to replenish and support sustainable groundwater yields from aquifers beneath the Poverty Bay Flats. The results from a risk-benefits analysis indicate that the further Stage II analysis, design and costing for a pilot injection MAR site is recommended.

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11th International Conference on Hydroinformatics Conference Proceeding Paper – August 2014

Erfan Goharian, Steve J. Burian, University of Utah

A GoldSim model was used to facilitate an integrated water resources management approach to deal with challenges related to increasing water demand, uncertain future climate variability, and conflicts related to water rights and access to water supplies. The GoldSim model was integrated with a web-based user interface to better facilitate stakeholder engagement and k-12 outreach and education activities.

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Improving an Urban Creek by Taking Away the Water – July 2014

A Tipene, Parsons Brinckerhoff

A sustainable stormwater harvesting project was evaluated to determine the ecological and water quality impact in a watershed located in New South Wales, Australia. GoldSim was used to simulate the operation of the proposed stormwater harvesting scheme. The model includes flow diversion structures, a harvest pool and complex behavior logic for the pumps and associated storage facilities.

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Visions to Realities - Stormwater Queensland Conference proceedings, Noosa – June 2014

E. Symons, C. Gimber, Kellogg Brown and Root Pty Ltd

Flooding of major regional roads and rail corridors severely disrupts transport operations including the export of mined minerals from central and north Queensland which contribute heavily to the Australian economy. It is important for proponents developing new infrastructure and operators of existing infrastructure to understand annual closure times resulting from flooding. Long linkages of road or rail that cross a number of catchment basins and a large number of drainage lines can be difficult to assess due to spatial variation, moving storms and concurrent storms. The objective of this paper is to create a simple methodology, using joint probability, to quantitatively assess the closure time along linear infrastructure. For this paper, GoldSim was used to represent the road or rail system.

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PhD Dissertation, University of New Mexico – May 2014

Ryan Richard Morrison

This is a doctoral dissertation describing the methodology used to develop a probabilistic, dynamic simulation model that evaluates the impacts of environmental flow alternatives. These alternatives implement various water use schemes in the Rio Chama basin in New Mexico. This work evaluates the influence of various flows on cottonwood recruitment, reservoir storage, hydropower production, and whitewater boating. This project used multiple tools with GoldSim's role focusing on the probabilistic and dynamic simulation of the hydroclimatic uncertainties related to management operations in the water system.

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Research Project Report, University of Utah – January 2014

Chris York, Steven Switzer, Travis Christensen, Jeff Huber, and Stephen Daras, University of Utah

A need to link SWMM (Storm Water Management Model) and GoldSim together was identified in the Urban Water Research Group at the University of Utah. This is an effort to link model results together to answer a greater number of research questions and enhance modelling results by using multiple software programs. The most efficient way to link SWMM and GoldSim was determined to be through a central database. Once model results were stored in the database, the values could then be shared with both programs. Additional analysis was performed using R and model results were shared via HydroServer.

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ANCOLD Conference – January 2014

Phillip Jordan, Alan Seed, Rory Nathan, Peter Hill, Eva Kordomenidi, Clive Pierce, Michael Leonard, Jacobs Australia

The overall catchment area of the Brisbane River is 13,500 km², of which 7,039 km² is upstream of Wivenhoe Dam. For any individual flood in the Brisbane River catchment, the flooding outcome along the river downstream of Wivenhoe Dam depends upon the volume, peak flow and timing of the flood hydrographs generated from the individual catchments upstream of Somerset Dam, between Somerset and Wivenhoe Dam, and from the tributaries of the Brisbane River downstream of Wivenhoe Dam, including Lockyer Creek and the Bremer River. This paper discusses the stochastic framework that was used to generate the 5449 sets of inflow hydrographs, to develop and stress test a dam operations model. The stochastic simulations were driven by 600 different space-time patterns of rainfall generated using a stochastic space-time multiplicative cascade model. Eight significant storms were identified in the radar archive to identify parameter sets for the stochastic generation algorithm and 600 replicates of space-time rainfall were generated. The statistical properties of spatial patterns of 48-hour rainfall bursts on eight major subcatchments of the Brisbane River catchment from the 600 stochastic replicates were verified against the same statistics derived from 38 major flood causing rainfall events observed in the catchment. The hydrographs were generated using an URBS rainfall runoff routing model of the Brisbane River catchment, which was calibrated to 38 historical flood events (between 1955 and 2013) and tested on a further 10 historical flood events (between 1887 and 1947). The stochastically simulated sets of inflow hydrographs were then used to assess the impact of variations in flood operation rules for Wivenhoe and Somerset dams.

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ANCOLD Conference – January 2014

Michel Raymond, Seqwater

This paper presents the methods used to apply a Flood Operation Simulation Model, and the methods used to present results of thousands of flood simulations in a way that different operational options could be compared. The approach was found to be valuable to understand the capacity of the dams to mitigate floods. The study identified shortcomings for the conventional design event approach to flood estimation. A broader range of stochastic floods was an advantage to assess flood mitigation performance and extreme floods of interest to dam safety.

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ANCOLD Conference – January 2014

Luke Toombes, Rob Ayre, Aurecon Australasia Pty Ltd

Many large dams are built as multi-purpose structures, providing both flood mitigation and bulk water storage, but requiring a trade-off in functionality between those purposes. In response to the Millennium Drought (2001 to 2009) closely followed by devastating floods in 2011, the State of Queensland initiated a comprehensive review of the operation of its flood mitigation dams. Part of this study involved development of an Integrated Assessment Methodology to provide an informed and unbiased assessment of the competing factors affecting dam operations. The methodology assessed the primary variables of flood damage and other impacts, future bulk water infrastructure and water security requirements in the form of a net present cost/benefit. The study concluded that modification of the dam flood release strategy to reduce flood damage during large events would come at the expense of increased frequency of minor flooding, or vice versa, with minimal net benefit. Similarly, reducing bulk water storage to increase flood mitigation would increase water supply costs by a similar magnitude to the flood damage prevented.

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Online Presentation, ASU Decision Center – January 2013

Mohammed Mahmoud, Central Arizona Project

This presentation is a summary of Central Arizona Project's "On-River Model", which was built in GoldSim to analyze system capacity in response to seasonal variations in demand, canal and reservoir operation rules, and optimization of power consumption.

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International Mine Water Association Annual Conference – October 2012

Conor O'Hara, Jaco Grobler, Greg Hookey, Jan Vermaak, Golder Associates Pty Ltd

GoldSim was used to simulate watershed runoff using stochastic rainfall (Markov chain) data and the application of climate change projections. The modeling approach resulted in the estimation of 30-yr flow series that reflected prevailing rainfall trends with the ability to consider the predicted climate change. Using GoldSim's optimization tool, random watershed parameters were generated to produce alternative simulated flow series for the planning horizon.

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Environmental Modeling & Assessment, October 2012, Volume 17, Issue 5, pp 455–467 – October 2012

Steven C. Zeug, Paul S. Bergman, Bradley J. Cavallo, and Kristopher S. Jones, Cramer Fish Sciences

Fisheries and water resource managers are challenged to maintain stable or increasing populations of Chinook salmon in the face of increasing demand on the water resources and habitats that salmon depend on to complete their life cycle. Alternative management plans are often selected using professional opinion or piecemeal observations in place of integrated quantitative information that could reduce uncertainty in the effects of management plans on population dynamics. We developed a stochastic life cycle simulation model for an endangered population of winter-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River, California, USA with the goal of providing managers a tool for more effective decision making and demonstrating the utility of life cycle models for resource management. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the input parameters that influenced variation in salmon escapement were dependent on which age class was examined and their interactions with other inputs (egg mortality, Delta survival, ocean survival). Certain parameters (river migration survival, harvest) that were hypothesized to be important drivers of population dynamics were not identified in sensitivity analysis; however, there was a large amount of uncertainty in the value of these inputs and their error distributions. Thus, the model also was useful in identifying future research directions. Simulation of variation in environmental inputs indicated that escapement was significantly influenced by a 10% change in temperature whereas larger changes in other inputs would be required to influence escapement. The model presented provides an effective demonstration of the utility of life cycle simulation models for decision making and provides fisheries and water managers in the Sacramento system with a quantitative tool to compare the impact of different resource use scenarios.

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Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management – July 2011

Lee Traynham, Richard Palmer, and Austin Polebitski

Regional water supply models were developed using GoldSim to predict the impacts to water supply systems in Seattle, Everett, Tacoma, and Bellevue, Washington. This research explored the ability of regional water supply systems to meet future water demands given rising populations and climate change. Three sets of climate impacted streamflows were created for future years 2025, 2050, and 2075 using three General Circulation Models and two emission scenarios. The performance of each water supply system was characterized by firm yield and reliability metrics.

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J. Water Resour. Plng. and Mgmt. Volume 137, Issue 1, pp. 72-82 – January 2011

Eset T. Alemu, Richard N. Palmer, Austin Polebitski, and Bruce Meaker

This paper discusses a GoldSim reservoir operations model that was developed for a public utility district in Washington, USA. This link takes you to the abstract and lets you download the full paper.

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Earth and Environmental Science, Climate Change – September 2010

Julie A. Vano, Nathalie Voisin, Lan Cuo, Alan F. Hamlet, Marketa McGuire Elsner, Richard N. Palmer, Austin Polebitski and Dennis P. Lettenmaier

GoldSim was used to build 3 water resources models to see how different systems in the Puget Sound area might perform under various climate change scenarios over the next century. Changes in future water demands were also considered. Streamflow was simulated using the distributed hydrology-soil-vegetation model, driven by downscaled ensembles of climate simulations archived from the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. These streamflows were used as input to the water resources models. The models predicted that the water systems should remain reliable under changing climate conditions but if demand increases then the reliability significantly declines.

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USCID Water Management Conference Proceeding – March 2010

Thaddeus Bettner, Grant Davids, Davids Engineering

Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District (GCID) developed a Resources Plan (Plan) to establish improved policies and decision making processes to better and more actively manage its available water supplies. GoldSim was used to simulate the water balance, which will help improve the District's data management and reporting systems and to better analyze historic and possible future water supplies and demands.

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ASCE Conference Proceeding Paper – May 2009

Daniel Wendell, Steve Shultz, and Aditya Tyagi, CH2MHILL

A GoldSim model was used to help determine how to maximize the "lifespan" of local water supplies, minimize costs, and avoid adverse impacts at an army base near the Mojave Desert, California. To meet the needs of this project, the entire water cycle of the area was evaluated in an integrated and quantitative manner, including: modeling local groundwater supplies; evaluating potential development of remote water supplies and associated costs; conducting an end-use water demand and conservation analysis; developing a recycled water irrigation program; implementing an indirect wastewater reuse (i.e., recharge) program; developing an operations program designed to mitigate adverse impacts such as land subsidence; and assessing cost, power consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions from the various alternatives.

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Master's Thesis, University of Utah – May 2008

Jason Lillywhite, University of Utah

This study uses GoldSim to apply a concept of combining marginal cost and reliability in an operational water supply model. Reliability and efficiency can significantly impact performance of producing and delivering water. Rapid population growth, climate change, extended droughts, and increasing public scrutiny are all reasons why it is becoming more important for water supply planners to develop strategies that provide reliable and cost-efficient solutions to the public. This model uses an approach of assessing reliability of water supply and marginal costs by incorporating both supply and demand-side management options. Risk-based reliability of the system is estimated as a function of shortages in flow rate and system storage volumes. The new approach is applied to a water supply planning model for the Washington County Water Conservancy District, a regional water wholesaler located in St. George, Utah. The results of this study show that increased operational efficiencies can be found while maintaining higher reliability in the system. The results also show that this approach can provide better insight into timing of large future supply acquisitions.

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Proceedings of the 2006 Water in Mining Conference – January 2006

Shaun Davidge, Aditya Jha and Russell Merz, Golder Associates

This paper describes a project which used GoldSim to evaluate infrastructure improvements for a water supply in Queensland, Australia.

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Proceedings of the 2005 Georgia Water Resources Conference, Athens, GA – April 2005

Joe Volpe and Charlie Voss, Golder Associates

This paper describes how dynamic simulation models can be used to make water use planning more quantitative.

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PLOS ONE – February 2021

Ernest Edem Edifor, Regina Brown, Paul Smith, Rick Kossik

Poor medication adherence is a global phenomenon that has received a significant amount of research attention yet remains largely unsolved. Medication non-adherence can blur drug efficacy results in clinical trials, lead to substantial financial losses, increase the risk of relapse and hospitalisation, or lead to death. The most common methods of measuring adherence are post-treatment measures; that is, adherence is usually measured after the treatment has begun. What the authors are proposing in this multidisciplinary study is a new technique for predicting the factors that are likely to cause non-adherence before or during medication treatment, illustrated in the context of potential non-adherence to COVID-19 antiviral medication. Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), allows system analysts to determine how combinations of simple faults of a system can propagate to cause a total system failure. Monte Carlo simulation is a mathematical algorithm that depends heavily on repeated random sampling to predict the behaviour of a system. In this study, the authors propose a new technique called Non-Adherence Tree Analysis (NATA), based on the FTA and Monte Carlo simulation techniques, to improve adherence. Firstly, the non-adherence factors of a medication treatment lifecycle are translated into what is referred to as a Non-Adherence Tree (NAT). Secondly, the NAT is coded into a format that is translated into the GoldSim software for performing dynamic system modelling and analysis using Monte Carlo. Finally, the GoldSim model is simulated and analysed to predict the behaviour of the NAT. NATA is dynamic and able to learn from emerging datasets to improve the accuracy of future predictions. It produces a framework for improving adherence by analysing social and non-social adherence barriers. Novel terminologies and mathematical expressions have been developed and applied to real-world scenarios. The results of the application of NATA using data from six previous studies in relation to antiviral medication demonstrate a predictive model which suggests that the biggest factor that could contribute to non-adherence to a COVID-19 antiviral treatment is a therapy-related factor (the side effects of the medication). This is closely followed by a condition-related factor (asymptomatic nature of the disease) then patient-related factors (forgetfulness and other causes). From the results, it appears that side effects, asymptomatic factors and forgetfulness contribute 32.44%, 22.67% and 18.22% respectively to discontinuation of medication treatment of COVID-19 antiviral medication treatment. With this information, clinicians can implement relevant interventions and measures and allocate resources appropriately to minimise non-adherence.

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13th Pipeline Technology Conference – March 2018

Maciej Witek, Warsaw University of Technology

The main goal of this paper is to estimate onshore buried pipeline failure probability based on Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL) inspection data. A code-based engineering approach to estimate the failure pressure was selected as appropriate to be applied directly after in-line inspections, due to the scope of the available data, before any expansive field excavations for direct observations. Det Norske Veritas DNV-RP-F-101 analytical method of burst pressure calculation for a straight pipe was applied. A probabilistic methodology was used to evaluate the severity of part-wall external corrosion defects and their growth over time on gas transmission grid. The Monte Carlo numerical method was selected in this paper for estimation of pipeline failure probability due to the external corrosion with respect to statistical distribution of input parameters. The evaluation of the burst pressure of the pipeline as a function of operation time was computed using reliability software called GoldSim.

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International Journal of Food Microbiology – February 2017

Jacxsens L, Stals A, De Keuckelaere A, Deliens B, Rajkovic A, and Uyttendaele M, Ghent University

A quantitative human norovirus (NoV) exposure model describing transmission of NoV during pre-harvest, harvest and further processing of soft red fruits exemplified by raspberries is presented. The outcomes of the model demonstrate the presence of NoV in raspberry puree or individual quick frozen (IQF) raspberry fruits and were generated by Monte Carlo simulations by combining GoldSim and @Risk software. This farm-to-fork model is a useful tool for evaluating NoV mitigation strategies in the soft red fruit supply chain.

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Environmental Technology & Innovation – October 2015

Xingtao Cao, Tracey Temple, Xingang Li, Frédéric Coulon, Hong Sui, Tianjin University and Cranfield University

In this study, the fate and distribution of the aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) of diesel fuel in chalk aquifer was investigated using a series of leaching column tests and then modelled using the Contaminant Transport module of the Goldsim software. Specifically the influence of chalk particle size on the behaviour and fate of the hydrocarbons was investigated. The numerical results and the Monte Carlo analysis showed that the migration of the alkanes and PAHs is greatly retarded by the organic carbon in chalk. It is also observed that the initial mass of the alkanes and PAHs and their respective partition coefficients are important for the decaying of the source at the surface immediately after the spill and the rate-limited dissolution is responsible for entrapping the hydrocarbons in the top layer of the chalk. Overall these results can help to better inform risk assessment and help decision for the remediation strategy.

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12th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering, ICASP12 – July 2015

Adiel Komey, Qianli Deng, Gregory Baecher, P. Andy Zielinkski and Tyler Atkinson

The reliable performance of a spillway system depends on the many environmental and operational demand functions placed upon it by basin hydrology, the hydraulic conditions at reservoirs and dams, operating rules for the cascade of reservoirs in the basin, and the vagaries of human and natural factors such as operator interventions or natural disturbances such as ice and floating debris. These systems interact to control floods, condition flows, and filter high frequencies in the river discharge. Their function is to retain water volumes and to pass flows in a controlled way. A systems simulation approach is presented for grappling with these varied influences on flow-control systems in hydropower installations. The river system studied is a series of four power stations in northern Ontario. At the head of the cascade is a seasonally-varying inflow. The remaining three dams downstream have little storage capacity. Each has two vertical lift gates and all four structures have approximately the same spillway capacity. The problem is to conceptualize a systems engineering model for the operation of the dams, spillways, and other components; then to employ the model through stochastic simulation to investigate protocols for the safe operation of the spillway and flow control system.

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Reliability Engineering & System Safety – July 2015

Donovan L. Mathias, Christopher J. Mattenberger, and Susie Go (NASA Ames Research Center)

The Engineering Risk Assessment (ERA) team at NASA Ames Research Center develops dynamic models with linked physics-of-failure analyses to produce quantitative risk assessments of space exploration missions. This paper applies the ERA approach to the 2014 Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management conference Space Propulsion System Benchmark Problem, which investigates dynamic system risk for a deep space ion propulsion system over three missions with time-varying thruster requirements and operations schedules. The dynamic missions are simulated using commercial software to generate integrated loss-of-mission (LOM) probability results via Monte Carlo sampling. The simulation model successfully captured all dynamics aspects of the benchmark missions, and convergence studies are presented to illustrate the sensitivity of integrated LOM results to the number of Monte Carlo trials. In addition, to evaluate the relative importance of dynamic modeling, the Ames Reliability Tool (ART) was used to build a series of quasi-dynamic, deterministic models that incorporated varying levels of the problem's dynamics. The ART model did a reasonable job of matching the simulation results for the simpler mission case, while auxiliary dynamic models were required to adequately capture risk-driver rankings for the more dynamic cases. This study highlights how state-of-the-art techniques can adapt to a range of dynamic problems.

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ASFPM Conference – June 2015

Md N M Bhuyian, Joseph Thornton, and Alfred Kalyanapu, Tennessee Tech University

The current research presents the development of a "flood loss curve" for the city of Sacramento, California. A flood loss curve is defined as a functional relationship between direct flood damages and flood intensity. This study uses a series of design flood events for the American River to investigate possible damage caused at different flood intensities that the city may experience in future. These scenarios are generated using a Monte Carlo-based hydrograph generator, and are used as inputs for a HEC-RAS model to develop flood intensity parameters including flood inundation extents, depths, velocities and arrival time. These simulated flood parameters are input into HEC-FIA to compute direct damages. Results indicated a positive correlation between losses and flood intensity, reinforcing our flood loss curve concept and its value. This methodology can be used for preliminary vulnerability assessment and ‘back of the envelope’ loss estimates for impending flood events.

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International Journal of Food Microbiology, Vol. 196, Pgs. 126-136 – March 2015

Stals A, Jacxsens L, Baert L, Uyttendaele M, Ghent University, Van Coillie E, Flemish Government, Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research.

This journal article describes a study that simulates human noroviruses (HuNoV) transmission during the preparation of deli sandwiches in a sandwich bar. A quantitative exposure model was developed by combining the GoldSim and @Risk® software packages.

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Journal Article published in the Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS) – January 2015

Mattenberger, C. NASA Ames Res. Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA; Mathias, D.L.; Go, S.

This study compares and contrasts three different approaches for the probabilistic safety assessment of crewed spacecraft: traditional static fault tree; fault tree hybrid, and dynamic Monte Carlo simulation (using GoldSim).

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Proceedings, Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management PSAM 12, Honolulu, HI – June 2014

Donovan L. Mathias, Susie Go, NASA Ames Research Center and Christopher J. Mattenberger, Science and Technology Corp.

Quantitative risk assessments of space exploration missions were developed by the Engineering Risk Assessment (ERA) team at NASA Ames Research Center, which uses GoldSim's discrete and continuous-time reliability elements. The model applies the ERA approach to the baseline and extended versions of the PSAM Space Thruster Challenge Problem, which investigates mission risk for a deep space ion propulsion system with time-varying thruster requirements and operations schedules. This study highlighted that state-of-the-art techniques can adequately adapt to a range of dynamic problems.

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Proceedings, Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management PSAM 12, Honolulu, HI – June 2014

Susie Go, Donovan L. Mathias, Scott Lawrence, Ken Gee, NASA Ames Research Center and Christopher J. Mattenberger, Science and Technology Corp

This paper presents an integrated reliability and physics-based risk modeling approach for assessing human spaceflight systems. The approach is demonstrated using an example, end-to-end risk assessment of a generic crewed space transportation system during a reference mission to the International Space Station. The behavior of the system is modeled using analysis techniques from multiple disciplines in order to properly capture the dynamic time- and state- dependent consequences of failures encountered in different mission phases. This approach facilitates risk-informed design by providing more realistic representation of system failures and interactions; identifying key risk-driving sensitivities, dependencies, and assumptions; and tracking multiple figures of merit within a single, responsive assessment framework that can readily incorporate evolving design information throughout system development.

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Presentation, PSAM12: Probabilistic Safety Assessment & Management Conference – June 2014

David Esh and Christopher Grossman, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses are an integral part of probabilistic assessment methods used to evaluate the safety of a variety of different systems. In many cases the systems are complex, information is sparse, and resources are limited. Models are used to represent and analyze the systems. To incorporate uncertainty, the developed models are commonly probabilistic. Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses are used to focus iterative model development activities, facilitate regulatory review of the model, and enhance interpretation of the model results. A large variety of uncertainty and sensitivity analyses techniques have been developed as modeling has advanced and become more prevalent. This paper compares the practical performance of six different uncertainty and sensitivity analyses techniques over ten different test functions under different noise levels. In addition, insights from two real-world examples are developed.

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5th Dam Safety Conference – September 2013

Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, Md Nowfel Mahmud Bhuyian, and Alfred Kalyanapu, Tennessee Tech University

The objective of this study is to address the impact of spatial resolution on the relative accuracy of downstream flood hazard after a dam break event. It is hypothesized that higher spatial resolution will significantly increase the model predictive ability and the accuracy of flood hazard maps. The current study employs a two-dimensional (2D) flood model, Flood2D-GPU in a probabilistic framework to investigate these spatial resolution impacts by applying dam break simulations on Burnett Dam near Asheville, NC. The dam break hydrograph is chosen as the uncertain parameter as it adds greater source of uncertainties in most situations. Using GoldSim, Monte Carlo modeling software, 99 stochastic dam break hydrographs representing various possible scenarios are generated. These hydrographs are input into Flood2D-GPU to produce probability weighted flood hazard maps. The probabilistic simulations are carried out for 9m, 31m, 46m, 62m and 93m spatial resolutions. The outcomes of this study will assist dam break modelers to enhance their Emergency Action Plans by providing recommendations for suitable spatial resolution and to avoid increased modeling time.

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Energy Procedia – January 2013

Rajesh Pawara, Grant Bromhal, Robert Dilmore, Bill Foxall, Edwin Jones, Curtis Oldenburg, Philip Stauffer, Stephen Unwin, and George Guthrie

The National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) is a US-Department of Energy (US-DOE) effort focused on developing a science-based methodology for quantifying risk profiles at geologic CO₂ sequestration sites. Risk profiles are calculated using an integrated assessment modelling (IAM) approach which treats a geologic CO₂ storage site as a system and uses a system modelling approach to predict time-dependent behaviour of the storage site. The authors have developed first generation risk profiles associated with a few key potential impacts due to CO₂ leakage from a sequestration reservoir, including change in groundwater quality in a shallow aquifer and return of CO₂ to the atmosphere.

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Sandia Report SAND2012-10342, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico – December 2012

Steven P. Miller, Jennifer E. Granata and Joshua S. Stein Sandia National Laboratories

Most photovoltaic (PV) performance models currently available are designed to use irradiance and weather data and predict PV system output using a module or array performance model and an inverter model. While these models can give accurate results, they do so for an idealized system. That is, a system that does not experience component failures or outages. We have developed the Photovoltaic Reliability and Performance Model (PV-RPM) to more accurately model these PV systems by including a reliability component that simulates failures and repairs of the components of the system, as well as allow for the disruption of the system by external events such as lightning or grid disturbances. In addition, a financial component has also been included to help assess the profitability of a PV system. This report provides some example analyses of three different PV system designs using the PV-RPM.

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Energy Procedia – January 2011

Philip H. Stauffer, Rajesh J. Pawara, Ronald C. Surdam, Zunsheng Jiao, Hailin Deng, Bruce C. Lettelier, Hari S. Viswanathan, Dean L. Sanzo, and Gordon N. Keating

This paper describes a preliminary application of the CO₂-PENS performance and risk analysis tool to a planned geologic CO₂ sequestration demonstration project in the Rock Springs Uplift (RSU), located in south western Wyoming. Data from the RSU are used to populate CO₂-PENS, an evolving system-level modeling tool developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This tool has been designed to generate performance and risk assessment calculations for the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide. The approach follows Systems Analysis logic and includes estimates of uncertainty in model parameters and Monte-Carlo simulations that lead to probabilistic results. Probabilistic results provide decision makers with a range in the likelihood of different outcomes. This paper presents results from a newly implemented approach in CO₂-PENS that captures site-specific spatially coherent details such as topography on the reservoir/cap-rock interface, changes in saturation and pressure during injection, and dip on overlying aquifers that may be impacted by leakage upward through wellbores and faults. Simulations of CO₂ injection under different uncertainty distributions for hypothetical leaking wells and faults are presented. Although results are preliminary and to be used only for demonstration of the approach, future results of the risk analysis will form the basis for a discussion on methods to reduce uncertainty in the risk calculations. Additionally, ideas on using the model to help locate monitoring equipment to detect potential leaks are presented. By maintaining site-specific details in the CO₂-PENS analysis, this tool allows more logical presentations to stakeholders in the region.

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25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Valencia, Spain – September 2010

E. Collins, S. Miller, M. Mundt, J. Stein, R. Sorensen, J. Granata, and M. Quintana, Sandia National Laboratories

A reliability and availability model has been developed for a portion of the 4.6 megawatt (MWdc) photovoltaic system operated by Tucson Electric Power (TEP) at Springerville, Arizona using a commercially available software tool, GoldSim™. This reliability model has been populated with life distributions and repair distributions derived from data accumulated during five years of operation of this system. This reliability and availability model was incorporated into another model that simulated daily and seasonal solar irradiance and photovoltaic module performance. The resulting combined model allows prediction of kilowatt hour (kWh) energy output of the system based on availability of components of the system, solar irradiance, and module and inverter performance. This model was then used to study the sensitivity of energy output as a function of photovoltaic (PV) module degradation at different rates and the effect of location (solar irradiance). Plots of cumulative energy output versus time for a 30 year period are provided for each of these cases.

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25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Valencia, Spain – September 2010

N. Robert Sorensen, Michael A. Quintana, Michael J. Mundt, Edward V. Thomas, Steven P. Miller, and Samuel J. Lucero, Sandia National Laboratories

A program is underway at Sandia National Laboratories to predict long-term reliability of photovoltaic (PV) systems. The vehicle for the reliability predictions is a system performance model, currently being run under a simulation software called GoldSim™. The model includes inputs for module performance, irradiance, and degradation. In order to be truly predictive, physics-informed degradation processes and failure mechanisms need to be included in the model. This paper describes accelerated life testing of metal foil tapes used in thin-film PV modules, and how tape joint degradation, a possible failure mode, can be incorporated into the model.

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Report for the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply – March 2010

Ricardo Sgrillo, CEPLAC

This report (in Portugese) describes the development of several stochastic and deterministic models to evaluate the risk of introduction and spread of the cacao frosty pod rot disease, from Peru to Brazil.

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Reliability and Maintainability Symposium – January 2008

Donovan L. Mathias, Susie Go, Ken Gee, and Scott Lawrence, NASA Ames Research Center

This paper describes the application of simulation-based risk assessment to the analysis of abort during the ascent phase of a space exploration mission.

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Master's Thesis – January 2006

Meera Creagh, University of Queensland

This thesis describes the use of GoldSim to evaluate different material choices for road-building projects.

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American Nuclear Society International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Analysis, PSA 05 – January 2005

Ian Miller and Andrew Burns

This paper describes a NASA-funded project to develop a reliability analysis module for the GoldSim simulation software capable of modeling highly dynamic systems over the duration of the mission, taking into account variation in input parameters and the evolution of the system. To illustrate the approach, two NASA examples that have previously been evaluated using classical PRA approaches were developed using the simulation-based approach. Issues surrounding the translation of the classical PRA models into a simulation-based approach are discussed, and areas where the simulation-based approach provided additional insights into the system behavior are highlighted.

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Los Alamos Science, Number 29, pgs. 56-69 – January 2005

Greg Valentine, Los Alamos National Laboratory

This article describes the process of volcanological risk assessment, including describing how this is modeled, using GoldSim, within the Yucca Mountain Total System Performance Assessment.

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Food Service Technology Volume 4 Issue 1, pgs. 31-49 – March 2004

Barry Michaels and Cheryll Keller, The Michaels Group; Matthew Blevins, University of Florida; Greg Paoli and Todd Ruthman, Decisionalysis Risk Consultants; Ewen Todd, Michigan State University; Christopher Griffith, University of Wales Institute

This paper describes the use of GoldSim and other risk analysis tools to model pathogen transmission in food handling. These models were used to explore the effectiveness of different food safety measures.

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Proceedings of the American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting – May 2002

Los Alamos National Laboratory

This paper describes a GoldSim model developed to assist in characterizing, monitoring and possible remediation activities for an ecosystem contaminated by outfalls from high explosive production sites at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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Renewable Energy – March 2019

Zvi Baum, Ruslana Rachel Palatnik and Ofira Ayalon, University of Haifa; David Elmakis and Shimon Frant, Israel Electric Corporation

This paper presents and evaluates a novel demand response method for households, designed for mitigating intermittency in smart grids with a high share of renewables. The method, named Dynamic-Active Demand Response (DADR), is based on an innovative paradigm of offering multiple electricity service levels and a dynamic-active demand response scheme. It provides the grid operator with the ability to influence consumption patterns in real time, so that responding to renewables intermittency is more effective in terms of reliability, predictability and response time. DADR's performance is evaluated using a Monte Carlo simulation model (implemented in GoldSim), which assesses the method's intermittency mitigation potential and estimates the expected economic value of implementing it in the Israeli residential sector.

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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control – August 2018

Sean Sanguinitoa, Angela L. Goodman, James I. Sams III

The ability to accurately predict the CO2 storage resource in saline formations is important to make high-level, energy-related government policy and business decisions. CO2-SCREEN (Storage prospeCtive Resource Estimation Excel aNalysis) is a tool developed by the United States Department of Energy − National Energy Technology Laboratory (US-DOE-NETL) to screen saline formations for prospective CO2 storage resources. CO2- SCREEN uses DOE methods and equations to serve as a consistent mechanism for calculating prospective CO2 storage resources. CO2-SCREEN is  comprised of two files: an Excel file used for inputs and outputs and a GoldSim Player file used to run Monte Carlo simulations. CO2-SCREEN requires input of physical geologic parameters (i.e., thickness, porosity) as well as efficiency factor ranges (i.e., net-to-gross thickness) to calculate a mass storage estimate. An application of CO2-SCREEN is demonstrated here using well log data from the Oriskany Sandstone portion in Pennsylvania. The Oriskany Sandstone is divided into 20 km x 20 km grid cells in which 151 cells contain well log data. CO2-SCREEN calculates prospective CO2 storage resource for each grid cell based on the well log data and uses lithology and depositional environment information for efficiency factor ranges. The Oriskany Sandstone CO2 storage resource estimate for Pennsylvania, calculated by CO2-SCREEN, ranges from 0.07 to 1.28 gigatons (Gt) with a P50 value of 0.32 Gt. This resource assessment analysis is done to demonstrate the use of CO2-SCREEN and results are comparable to previous studies which encourages the application of CO2- SCREEN to other saline formations and warrants exploring the expansion of this tool to assess the CO2 storage resource in other formations such as shale and depleted oil and gas reservoirs.

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Renewable Energy – December 2017

Alexandros Daniilidis, Betül Alpsoy, and Rien Herber, University of Groningen

This paper presents a techno-economic analysis of a deep, direct use geothermal heat system in a conductive geological setting (Groningen, NE Netherlands). The model integrates the previously discussed uncertainties of the initial reservoir state, geological and operational conditions with the economic uncertainties. These uncertainties are incorporated in the form of probability distributions and 20,000 iterations of the model are performed over a project lifetime of 40 years. A combination of Ex-Ante and Ex-Post criteria are used to evaluate the economic performance of the system based on the Net Present Value (NPV), Levelised Cost of Heat (LCOH) and Expected Monetary Value (EMV).

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Africa 2017 – Hydropower and Dams – March 2017

Robert Patev, Adiel Komey and Gregory Baecher

The quantification of operational risks at US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) dam and hydropower projects is a critical piece of the overall USACE risk assessment processes. Operational risks need to be considered for both the daily operations and maintenance of the dam and hydropower systems and for emergency operations required during flood events. Many USACE dam and hydropower projects are multi-purpose and the methodology developed needs to be considered holistically to all operational aspects of the projects. Dams, along with their spillways and other waterways, are built to retain and control the flow of water for purposes of power production, water supply, navigation, recreation, flood risk mitigation, and environmental restoration. This paper will define a system methodology that evaluates the performance of structural, mechanical, electrical controls and sensing equipment over a range of loading conditions that are in combination with human factors such as work environment and stress, internal communication, operator training, and management policies and practices. The result of this system modelling is to identify weaknesses and corrective actions in areas such as corrective maintenance activities, plant staff working environments and level of job training, horizontal and vertical communication with upper management, and operations and maintenance manuals for dam and hydropower projects. 

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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control – November 2016

Angela Goodman, Sean Sanguinito, Jonathan S. Levine

Carbon storage resource estimation in subsurface saline formations plays an important role in establish-ing the scale of carbon capture and storage activities for governmental policy and commercial projectdecision-making. Prospective CO2 resource estimation of large regions or sub-regions, such as a basin,occurs at the initial screening stages of a project using only limited publicly available geophysical data (i.e., prior to project-specific site selection data generation). As the scale of investigation is narrowed and selected areas and formations are identified, prospective CO2 resource estimation can be refined and uncertainty narrowed when site-specific geophysical data are available. Here, we refine the United StatesDepartment of Energy – National Energy Technology Laboratory (US-DOE-NETL) methodology as the scale of investigation is narrowed from very large regional assessments down to selected areas and formationsthat may be developed for commercial storage. In addition, we present a new notation that explicitly identifies differences between data availability and data sources used for geologic parameters and efficiency factors as the scale of investigation is narrowed. This CO2 resource estimation method is available for screening formations in a tool called CO2-SCREEN.

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Journal article, Energy Procedia 63, 7205–7214 – January 2014

Sullivan Graham, E.Ja, Chu, S., Pawar, R.J., Stauffer, P.H. with Los Alamos National Laboratory

Extraction of in-situ water is one of the options for minimizing the impact of large-scale CO2 injection in saline aquifers or during enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The amount of water to be produced could be significant depending on in-situ conditions and injection parameters. Evaluating the costs of treatment is complex, as the quality of the water may vary considerably from treatments based on well-known seawater chemistry, including reverse osmosis. We evaluated a brackish-salinity water to be extracted from a future CO2 injection and storage location in eastern China for prototype treatment costs for both cooling water and boiler water final treatment goals. Costs for treatment of the water, excluding costs for organic pretreatment, were within the range of previously analyzed costs for higher-salinity waters but are likely to be lower when economies of scale are included for a full-scale, higher volume treatment facility. Importance analysis lends insight into process factors that may not contribute the highest unit costs to treatment but on whole are very important to total system costs. We found that the acid rate for pretreatment, zero-liquid discharge disposal, feed water temperature, and water transportation costs, were the most important factors within total system costs for this analysis. The CO2-PENS Water Treatment Model was developed using GoldSim.

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Journal article for the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control – December 2013

Enid Sullivan, Shaoping Chu, Philip Stauffer, Richard Middleton, and Rajesh Pawar with Los Alamos National Laboratory

Extraction of water as a part of CO2 storage may be desirable for risk management and process optimization. Treatment and repurposing of this water creates a useful resource and reduces the volumes that must otherwise be disposed. To better understand the tradeoff of costs versus processes and risks, we use a systems approach to evaluate treatment costs that are reasonable for the chemical and physical qualities (salinity, temperature, pH and turbidity) of water that could be extracted from target geologic formations. We evaluate primary and secondary pretreatments, membrane desalination processes (reverse osmosis and nanofiltration), thermal processes (multiple effect distillation and multi-stage flash distillation), and several concentrate (brine) disposal methods. The system model was developed in GoldSim. The results indicate that for waters extracted from storage sites, salinities and temperatures may often be higher than for municipal treatment scenarios. Thus, thermal treatment methods are more cost-feasible than membrane methods in many cases, although pressure recovery methods for reverse osmosis can mitigate this. Treatment costs including concentrate disposal fall within a range of US$0.50–2.50/ton CO2 injected, although some costs can be much higher (up to US$30/ton CO2 under certain concentrate disposal cost ranges). A sensitivity analysis shows that temperature is the most important in determining costs followed by selection of concentrate disposal method.

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Applied Mechanics and Materials – June 2013

Tian Yue Xu, Wen Zhu Gao, Tie Qiang Zhang, Ke Bi, Wei Wei Zhai, and Yu Zhang, JiLin University

This essay uses the method of photon tracing to describe the simulation of PbSe quantum dots luminescent solar concentrator based on GoldSim software and optimize its size. We find that under the condition of size optimization, the photoelectric conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells which stick to the side of PbSe quantum dots luminescent solar concentrator can reach 32.5%. It explains that PbSe quantum dots are very suitable for LSC system.

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Enhancement of the Coal Seam Gas Water Production Tool, Deliverable 4: Addendum to Technical Report – March 2013

Greg Keir, Lucy Reading, Sue Vink

A water production tool was developed by Klohn Crippen Berger using GoldSim to predict the potential volumes of water extracted by the coal seam gas industry within the Bowen and Surat Basins in Queensland over the next 50 years.

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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control – December 2012

Enid Sullivan, Shaoping Chu, Philip Stauffer, and Rajesh Pawar with Los Alamos National Laboratory

Extraction of water during subsurface carbon sequestration may be useful for the control of CO2 placement, reducing pressure risks, and mitigating environmental risks. Desalination of this water may be possible if costs are kept low, in order to minimize the quantity that must be reinjected or otherwise disposed. Added value may be recovered in the form of treated water that can be reused by carbon capture, sequestration, and other industrial processes. Total dissolved solids will range from 10,000mg/L up to over 100,000 mg/L, and temperatures may range up to 120°C, once the water is brought to the surface. We have developed a system-level, mesoscale analysis module for the CO2-Predicting engineered natural system model to analyze the feasibility of treatment, the costs of treatment, the value of energy recovery, and the costs of concentrate disposal. Costs are derived from a database of reported literature values. The model, developed in GoldSim, allows the user to select the most economic options for treatment, to compare costs, and to understand the trade-off of risks and costs. Results of preliminary modeling indicate that while reverse osmosis is feasible within certain temperature and salinity ranges, nanofiltration and thermal methods may be more cost-effective or otherwise feasible.

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Technical Report, Prepared for the State of Queensland (Department of Natural Resources and Mines) – September 2012

Klohn Crippen Berger

A basin-wide model was built to help forecast produced water from coal seam gas (CSG) operations in Queensland, Australia. This report describes how the tool works and reports a summary of findings for the forecast period of 2010-2060.The Water Production Tool (WPT) required a robust software platform to accommodate both quantitative inputs and inferred relationships. The platform needed to be flexible, transparent and represent the processes inherent in the system with appropriate recognition of uncertainty in all of the variables. The platform selected for the WPT was GoldSim, which permitted construction of a multi-tiered, practical and modifiable tool, with the additional option of stochastic (Monte Carlo) modelling.

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Master of Science Thesis – May 2012

Samuel R. Wilton, Pennsylvania State University

A robust and user-friendly Monte Carlo ray-tracing simulation was developed for this thesis to study the efficiencies, loss mechanisms, and costs of Luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) systems employing a wide variety of different fluorescent materials and PV cells. Specifically, the simulation software was used to study the performance of infrared emitting PbSe quantum dot LSCs, estimate the efficiencies of non-conventional PV cells in LSC designs, assess the present capabilities of conventional LSC systems to harvest solar power at reduced cost, and investigate the viability of building-integrated LSC systems.

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17th International Drying Symposium (IDS 2010), Magdeburg, Germany – October 2010

Ringer, D.U., Hochschule Furtwangen University

Energy intensive activities such as drying are in the focus of attention of CO2-reduction schemes. Origin and quality of the energy used are key issues for the development of the atmospheric CO2-content. Biomass as energy source is discussed as a possi-bility to reduce atmospheric CO2. However, the line of logic comes from simple static balances. Yet, CO2 is part of the Global Carbon Cycle which is a large, global, dynamic network. A simple but globally accurate dynamic model of this cycle was built using GoldSim, which develops scenarios to look at the biomass arguments from a dynamic point of view.

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International Conference on Fast Reactors and Related Fuel Cycles (FR 2009), Kyoto, Japan – December 2009

Morris, E. E. and Nutt, W. M., Argonne National Laboratory

While the traditional approach to reactor safety analyses remain deterministic, this paper considers a stochastic approach for explicitly including uncertainty in safety parameters by applying Monte Carlo sampling coupled with established deterministic reactor safety analysis tools.

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Article in Environmental Science and Technology, Volume 43, Number 3, pgs. 565-570 – December 2008

Philip Stauffer, Hari Viswanathan, Rajesh Pawar and George Guthrie, Los Alamos National Laboratory

This article describes the CO2-PENS model developed to simulate capture, transport and injection in different geological reservoirs.

Overview: Poster from the 2007 GoldSim User Conference

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Animal Feed Science and Technology, Volume 143, Issue 1, pgs. 280-295 – May 2008

Pacheco, David, AgResearch Limited, Food, Metabolism and Microbiology Section, Grasslands Research Centre

This paper describes an application of GoldSim that simulates the many factors influencing the quality of a cows' diet, including the weather, level of fertilization, and the age of plants. Stochastic variables for pasture chemical composition and dry matter intake were incorporated in the model. Stochastic simulation may be useful to explore the likelihood of responses to management scenarios designed to increase the efficiency of dietary nitrogen use in pastoral systems characterized by uncertainty and variability.

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Proceedings of the 2003 International Ash Utilization Symposium – April 2005

Todd Stong and Ron Jorgenson, Golder Associates; Russ Nelson and Tony Stroh, Great River Energy

This paper describes a model built to evaluate management plans for coal combustion process in light of market conditions and pending EPA regulations.

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Heliyon, Volume 8, Issue 11, E11758 – November 2022

Encina Gutierrez-Carazo, James Dowle, Frederic Coulon, Tracey Temple,and Melissa Ladyman

There is a trend toward the use of Insensitive High Explosives (IHE) in both military and civil applications as they are intended to be less prone to accidental detonation compared to traditional explosive fills. This has driven the development of new explosive formulations containing different chemical compounds whose behaviour once they are released into the environment is not fully understood. To date, research into the toxicity and the persistence of IHE compounds in the environment is scarce and little has been described about how they interact with, or move through soil. In this work, the transport of two IHE constituents, 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN) and 3-nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (NTO), through two soil types (sand and sandy loam) was simulated in GoldSim using a stochastic approach. The simulation outputs were validated by comparison to results from empirical soil column experiments. Sorption of the IHE constituents to the soil was the most significant factor in predicting when the contaminants eluted from the soil column. Sensitivity analysis demonstrated that variation in the matrix water partition coefficient (Kd) had the greatest influence when used to predict the IHE compounds transport. Kd was measured empirically and, as expected, it was low in sand for NTO (0.334 L kg−1) and DNAN (0.401 L kg−1), suggesting high mobility. While in sandy loam Kd for NTO (0.242 L kg−1) was similar to one obtained in sand, it was significantly higher for DNAN (9.128 L kg−1), explaining the high retention and adsorption in the sandy loam soil. The use of stochastic modelling to estimate IHE breakthrough concentrations could enable the uncertainty inherent in environmental systems to be embedded into simulations, thus increasing their representativeness. This study is the first step toward proactive management of IHE in the environment, and may support decision making for remediation and mitigation strategies in different environments.

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Energies – September 2022

Jiri Landa and Milan Hokr

A model of contaminant transport from a repository to the biosphere is one of the major needs in the safety assessment of the geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel. This work deals with the development of a procedure that obtained characteristic data from the transport path by postprocessing the results of the 3D flow and transport models, according to the repository concept for the Czech Republic. Postprocessing was used to map the entire transport pathway, which included the smallest tracer flows; therefore, it is called the “integral method”. The results are the characteristics of the storage system, such as: transport path length, flow time, total dilution, groundwater flow, longitudinal dispersivity, porosity, etc. These acquired characteristics can be used directly in safety analyses or to narrow the selection of candidate sites. Furthermore, these parameters were used to set up a model with lumped parameters (in this case, created in the GoldSim SW environment). Even only one “Pipe” component, after being properly set up, shows almost identical results to the entire 3D model. Based on the results of the 3D model, it is possible to set up a lumped parameter model that accurately simulates the transport path and can perform further calculations of a larger number of contaminants in repeated runs, e.g., with stochastic input data, which would be very laborious (or not possible at all) with the 3D model. 

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Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 9, 05821 – September 2022

John Tauxe and Paul Black, Neptune and Company; Vaclav Hanusik, VUJE Trnava, Inc.

This paper discusses the performance assessment of a low- and intermediate-level waste repository in the Slovak Republic.

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MRS Advances – January 2021

Joseph N.P. Lillington, Thomas L. Goût, Mike T. Harrison, Tajudeen M. Iwalewa and Ian Farnan

The vitrification of radioactive waste within glass and subsequent disposal within a geological disposal facility (GDF) requires a comprehensive understanding of the effect of glass dissolution on GDF performance. This paper aims to analyse the effect of both high-level and intermediate-level waste (HLW and ILW) glass dissolution source terms on radionuclide release into the geosphere just above the disposal vault (the ‘crown’). Radionuclide migration was simulated in GoldSim for HLW in either granite or clay host rocks with a bentonite buffer using carbon steel or copper canisters, whereas ILW simulations considered either granite or clay host rocks, in either bentonite buffer or cement backfill, using concrete or cast-iron canisters. Glass dissolution source terms were varied by coupling GoldSim and MATLAB to modify the initial, residual, and resumption dissolution rates of the glass or by applying the analytical GRAAL model to glass dissolution. HLW glass results indicate no preference of granite over clay host rocks for a given canister type but that a copper canister is preferable to steel. ILW results suggest that a granite–bentonite–cast-iron environment yields lowest crown activities with cast-iron preferable to concrete as the canister, bentonite preferable to cement as the buffer/backfill, and granite preferable to clay as the host rock. Varying glass dissolution source terms (initial, residual, and resumption dissolution rates) had an understood effect on radionuclide migration, although changes were arguably insignificant considering peak crown activity for both HLW and ILW.

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NORM Symposium – December 2020

K. Catlett, P. Black, R. Perona, S. Van Sickle, G. Occhiogrosso, A. Fleury

Naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) and technologically enhanced NORM (TENORM) can be disposed of at a variety of sites, including Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) landfills where low levels of radioactive waste are accepted. The performance of the landfill with regard to radiological operating permit requirements is often assessed using a model constructed with the residual radioactivity (RESRAD) computer program, developed by Argonne National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). RESRAD supports the evaluation of several environmental transport pathways related to a radionuclide-contaminated soil source term, but it was not conceived as a model for the evaluation of landfill radiological performance. A more comprehensive and realistic model can be developed using the GoldSim dynamic Monte Carlo modeling software. Performance Assessment (PA) computer models have been developed using GoldSim software for and by a variety of organizations, including the US Department of Energy, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and corporate waste disposal companies. The RESRAD computer model was specifically developed for calculating soil cleanup criteria and radiological dose and cancer risk from residual radioactive material in soil. To evaluate site-specific conditions, users may select from among a number of available environmental transport and exposure pathways and modify “default” parameter values. In GoldSim, a user must construct the model “from scratch.” However, this modeling is facilitated by a number of specialized elements available in GoldSim to support a radiological mass transport model. These include elements for defining radiological decay and ingrowth, container failure and radiological release, advective and diffusive transport, and other processes. Advantages afforded by the use of RESRAD for modeling radiological dose for a RCRA landfill include ease of use and that it is commonly known. GoldSim allows for considerably more flexibility and site-specificity than RESRAD, including evaluation of potentially relevant environmental transport processes not supported in RESRAD. The probabilistic modeling capabilities of GoldSim also far exceed those of RESRAD. The pros and cons of RESRAD and GoldSim for this modeling problem are explored with a focus on identifying approaches and critical factors in identifying the appropriate platform.

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Proceedings of the 2018 Waste Management Symposium – March 2018

K.P. Lee, R. Andrews, N. Hasan, R. Senger, M. Kozak, A. K. Wahi, and W. Zhou

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of River Protection and its subcontractors performed a performance assessment for the near-surface disposal of low-level and mixed low-level waste at the Hanford Integrated Disposal Facility. Computer simulations were performed to evaluate whether or not the disposal facility would comply with the performance objectives specified by the DOE. The evaluation was performed using numerical models to simulate source term releases from vitrified and cement-based waste forms. Source term releases were subsequently transported through the facility into the natural system beneath the facility (comprised of an 85-meter thick vadose zone and thinner but highly conductive saturated zone overlying basalt) to a point of compliance 100-meters downstream the disposed waste. Due to the differing scales in the finite difference models developed for the source terms and those developed for the natural system, numerical models for source term release and natural system flow and transport were not directly coupled. Instead, the output from the source term simulations were used as input to the natural system flow and transport simulations. The decoupling of the modeled systems makes it difficult to explore synergies and investigate the impact of parameter uncertainties. In order to explore system synergies and evaluate parameter uncertainty, an integrated system model was developed using GoldSim that includes source term release models, natural system transport models, and dose calculations. This paper describes how the numerical models were used to develop abstractions that could be incorporated into the integrated system-level model that was then used to explore system synergies and parameter uncertainties.

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Nuclear Engineering and Technology – August 2017

Chih-Lung Chen, Taiwan Power Company; Tsing-Hai Wang, National Tsing Hua University

Diffusion is a crucial mechanism that regulates the migration of radioactive nuclides. In this study, an innovative numerical method was developed to simultaneously calculate the diffusion coefficient of both parent and, afterward, series daughter nuclides in a sequentially reactive through-diffusion model. Two constructed scenarios, a serial reaction (RN_1 → RN_2 → RN_3) and a parallel reaction (RN_1 → RN_2A + RN_2B), were proposed and calculated for verification. First, the accuracy of the proposed three-member reaction equations was validated using several default numerical experiments. Second, by applying the validated numerical experimental concentration variation data, the as-determined diffusion coefficient of the product nuclide was observed to be identical to the default data. The results demonstrate the validity of the proposed method. The significance of the proposed numerical method will be particularly powerful in determining the diffusion coefficients of systems with extremely thin specimens, long periods of diffusion time, and parent nuclides with fast decay constants.

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Nuclear Engineering and Design – March 2017

Seunghee Lee and Juyoul Kim, FNC Technology Co.

Great attention has been recently paid to the post-closure safety assessment of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LILW) disposal facility for disused sealed radioactive sources (DSRSs) around the world. Although the amount of volume of DSRSs generated from industry, medicine and research and education organization was relatively small compared with radioactive wastes from commercial nuclear power plants, some DSRSs can pose a significant hazard to human health due to their high activities and long half-lives, if not appropriately managed and disposed. In this study, post-closure safety assessment was carried out for DSRSs generated from 1991 to 2014 in Korea in order to ensure long-term safety of near surface disposal facilities. Two kinds of disposal options were considered, i.e., engineered vault type disposal facility and rock-cavern type disposal facility. Rock-cavern type disposal facility has been under operation in Gyeongju city, republic of Korea since August 2015 and engineered vault type disposal facility will be constructed until December 2020 in the vicinity of rock-cavern disposal facility. Assessment endpoint was individual dose to the member of critical group, which was modeled by GoldSim, which has been widely used as probabilistic risk analysis software based on Monte Carlo simulation in the area of safety assessment of radioactive waste facilities.

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Proceedings of The 20th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference. PBNC 2016. – February 2017

Hong-hui Li, China Institute for Radiation Protection

In China, “The Law on Prevention and Control for Radioactive Pollution” issued in 2003 determined that the high-level waste will be disposed in a deep central geological repository. The main work of China Institute for Radiation Protection (CNNC-mandated comprehensive research) about HLW disposal is safety assessment. In 2006–2010, the CIRP have done some of the works about safety criteria and safety requirements: public radiation protection for post-closure of repository: 0.3 mSv/a; timescale: 10,000a. The CIRP also have established SA methodology and routine. Some software about safety assessment such as AMBER, Ecolegy, GoldSim, ProFlow can be familiarly used. The main works in 2014–2017 about the safety assessment that will be done are the research of safety requirements of the EBS and host rock, the research of safety function of the EBS and host rock, establishing the safety indicators’ system of the EBS and host rock, establishing the FEPs list and the scenario analysis in the conceptual and planning stage, the near-field temperature simulation based on the conceptual design of the repository, and the safety assessment of Beishan Preliminary Repository. Some of the above-mentioned work details will be introduced in this paper.

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Chemosphere – November 2016

Jolin WC, University of Connecticut; Kaminski M, Argonne National Laboratory

Procedures for removing harmful radiation from interior and exterior surfaces of homes and businesses after a nuclear or radiological disaster may generate large volumes of radiologically contaminated waste water. Rather than releasing this waste water to potentially contaminate surrounding areas, it is preferable to treat it onsite. Retention barrels are a viable option because of their simplicity in preparation and availability of possible sorbent materials. This study investigated the use of aluminosilicate clay minerals as sorbent materials to retain (137)Cs, (85)Sr, and (152)Eu. To simulate flow within retention barrels, vermiculite was mixed with sand and used in small-scale column experiments. The GoldSim contaminate fate module was used to model breakthrough and assess the feasibility of using clay minerals as sorbent materials in retention barrels.

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Economic and Environmental Geology – August 2016

Seunghee Lee, Juyoul Kim and Sukhoon Kim, FNC Technology Co.

Disused Sealed Radioactive Sources (DSRSs) are stored temporally in the centralized storage facility of Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD) and planned to be disposed in the low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LILW) disposal facility in Gyeongju city. In this study, preliminary post-closure safety assessment was performed for DSRSs in order to draw up an optimum disposal plan. Two types of disposal options were considered, i.e. engineered vault type disposal and rock cavern type disposal which were planned to be constructed and operated respectively in LILW disposal facility in Gyeongju city. Assessment end-point was individual effective dose of critical group and calculated by using GoldSim code.

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Progress in Nuclear Energy – July 2016

Youn-Myoung Lee, Heui-Joo Choi, and Kyungsu Kim, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)

To compare two options for disposal of spent nuclear fuels (SFs) a generic GoldSim model for deep boreholes for disposal (DBD) of SFs was developed. As a desktop study, nuclide release and transport from a DBD after the closure of a repository were roughly evaluated and compared to a KBS-3 type disposal in a less deep geological repository (DGD). An assessment result from the DBD is shown to be remarkable and seems to give a sufficient radiological safety margin, compared to the DGD, even though this study was done in a very straightforward manner. A remarkable sensitivity of the travel lengths involved in the fractured geological media around the DBD to the exposure dose rates are not observed with rather fast and short travel times for non-sorbing nuclides with long-half lives.

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Progress in Nuclear Energy – July 2016

Jongtae Jeong, Youn-Myoung Lee, Jung-Woo Kim, Dong-Keun Cho, Nak Yul Ko, and Min Hoon Baik, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)

KAERI developed a reference repository system for the disposal of radioactive wastes resulting from the pyroprocessing of PWR spent nuclear fuels (A-KRS; Advanced Korean Reference Disposal System). To check the design feasibility of this system, we developed a total system performance assessment (TSPA) tool using Goldsim program and assessed the exposure dose rates for the reference scenario and three alternative scenarios such as earthquake, well intrusion, and initial defect of waste packages by using this tool. And then, we compared the exposure dose rates for each scenario with a draft supplementary safety goal, 10 mSv/yr, which was suggested by the regulatory body in Korea.

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Progress in Nuclear Energy – April 2016

Youn-Myoung Lee, Heui-Joo Choi, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)

A simple and effective model and a GoldSim template program, by which a probabilistic safety assessment of a conceptual trench-type repository for low- and intermediate level radioactive waste (LILW) disposal can be carried out under various nuclide release scenarios, have been developed. To quantify the exposure dose rates due to nuclide release from the trench and transport through the various pathways possible in the near- and far-fields of the repository system under a base case and some alternative scenarios, illustrative evaluations for a comparison among the scenarios as well as a sensitivity of shortcut pathways generated due to earthquakes on the nuclide transport are made and demonstrated. To this end, by changing the conservative base case nuclide release scenario under which all portions of the cap of the trench are failed unconditionally and immediately after a closure of the repository, a total of four other alternative scenarios were separately evaluated for the total exposure dose rates to the farming exposure group and then compared to the base case results.

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Procedia Chemistry – January 2016

Heejae Ju, Inhye Hahm, Sungjune Sohn, and Il Soon Hwang, Seoul National University

We have conducted a long-term environmental assessment of a geological repository for Intermediate Level Wastes (ILW) arising from PyroGreen processes that has been developed to decontaminate all HLW from the pyrochemical partitioning of spent nuclear fuels (SNF). PyroGreen process has been designed so that final ILW can meet conservative acceptance criteria such as one established for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in U.S.A. The nuclide inventory of final vitrified PyroGreen waste is calculated using ORIGEN 2.1 based on the design decontamination factor of PyroGreen processes applied to 18,171 metric tons of PWR SNF with 45 GWD/MTU burnup. Using GoldSim model, the environmental impact of ILW upon geological disposal at an intermediate depth. Among radioactive nuclides, Ra226, Rn222 and Sn126 are identified as key contributors to radiological dose for general public. The environmental impact of PyroGreen wastes satisfies the Korean dose limit of 0.1 mSv/year with sufficiently high margin. Sensitivity studies have shown that the predicted dose can vary significantly by distribution coefficient of Ra226 and Rn222, solubility limit of Se79.

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Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems, Vol. 4 No. 3 – January 2016

Lucie Baborová, Dušan Vopálka, Aleš Vetešník, and Eva Hofmanová, Czech Technical University in Prague

The study deals with sorption and diffusion behaviour of strontium in Czech bentonite B75. The study is a part of a research on reactive transport of radioactive contaminants in barrier materials of a deep geological repository of radioactive waste in the Czech Republic. Series of sorption and diffusion experiments with Sr and non-activated Ca bentonite B75 produced in the Czech Republic were performed in two background solutions (CaCl2 and NaCl). On the basis of sorption batch experiments the kinetics of strontium sorption on bentonite was assessed and the sorption isotherms for various experimental conditions were obtained. As a result of performed diffusion experiments the parameters of diffusion (i.e. effective diffusion coefficient De and apparent diffusion coefficient Da) were determined. The observed discrepancies between sorption characteristics obtained from the sorption and diffusion experiments are discussed.

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Mineralogical Magazine – November 2015

R. C. Walke, M. C. Thorne, J. T. Smith, and R. Kowe

Radioactive Waste Management Limited (RWM) is tasked with implementing geological disposal of the United Kingdom’s (UK) higher activity radioactive wastes. This paper describes how RWM’s biosphere modelling capability has been extended from a solely terrestrial model to allow potential contaminant releases to estuarine, coastal and marine systems around the UK to be represented. The new models aim to strike a balance between being as simple as can be justified, erring on the side of conservative estimates of potential doses, while also representing the features and processes required to reflect and distinguish UK coastal systems. Sediment dynamics (including meandering of estuaries and sediment accumulation) are explicitly represented in a simplified form that captures the accumulation and remobilization of radionuclides. Long-term transitions between biosphere systems (such as from a salt marsh to a terrestrial system) are outside the scope of the study. The models and supporting data draw on information about the UK that is representative of present-day conditions and represent potential exposures arising from both occupational and recreational habits.

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Mineralogical Magazine – November 2015

Charalampos Doulgeris, Paul Humphreys, and Simon Rout

Carbon-14 (C-14) is a key radionuclide in the assessment of a geological disposal facility (GDF) for radioactive waste. In the UK a significant proportion of the national C-14 inventory is associated with reactor-core graphite generated by the decommissioning of the UK's Magnox and AGR reactors. There are a number of uncertainties associated with the fate and transport of C-14 in a post-closure disposal environment that need to be considered when calculating the radiological impacts of C-14-containing wastes. Some of these uncertainties are associated with the distribution of C-14-containing gaseous species such as ¹⁴CH₄ and ¹⁴CO₂ between the groundwater and gaseous release pathways. As part of the C14-BIG programme, a modelling framework has been developed to investigate these uncertainties. This framework consists of a biogeochemical near-field evolution model, incorporating a graphite carbon-14 release model, which interfaces with a geosphere/biosphere model. The model highlights the potential impact of the microbial reduction of ¹⁴CO₂ to ¹⁴CH₄, through the oxidation of H₂, on C-14 transport. The modelling results could be used to inform the possible segregation of reactor graphite from other gasgenerating wastes.

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Mineralogical Magazine – November 2015

R.J. Winsley, T.D. Baldwin, T.W. Hicks, R.M. Mason, and P.N. Smith

A geological disposal facility (GDF) will include fissile materials that could, under certain conditions, lead to criticality. Demonstration of criticality safety therefore forms an important part of a GDF's safety case. Containment provided by the waste package will contribute to criticality safety during package transport and the GDF operational phase. The GDF multiple-barrier system will ensure that criticality is prevented for some time after facility closure. However, on longer post-closure timescales, conditions in the GDF will evolve and it is necessary to demonstrate: an understanding of the conditions under which criticality could occur; the likelihood of such conditions occurring; and the consequences of criticality should it occur. Work has addressed disposal of all of the UK's higher-activity wastes in three illustrative geologies. This paper, however, focuses on presenting results to support safe disposal of spent fuel, plutonium and highly-enriched uranium in higher-strength rock.

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Conference Proceedings, WM2015 Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, USA – March 2015

Bernt Haverkamp, DBE Technology GmbH and Heinz Kroeger, TÜV NORD EnSys Hannover

The Saakadze disposal facility is located about 40 km from Tbilisi and was planned and constructed during Soviet times as Radon-type surface facility to accommodate up to 600 m3 of low and intermediate level waste generated on the territory of Georgia. The disposal facility was operated from 1963 until its closure in 1995. The vast majority of waste in the Saakadze facility has been disposed of in two near surface concrete vaults with typical Radon-type dimensions, which cover layers already show significant structural damages. For the long-term calculations a mathematical model has been developed using the GoldSim simulation environment. GoldSim simulates the material transport and takes care of radioactive decay and the ingrowth of daughter nuclides.

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TOC-WP-14-4902 -FP Revision 0, Prepared for the U.S. DOE – January 2015

M. Bergeron, S. Mehta, W.J. McMahon, M. Kozak, A. Aly, M. Connelly, K. Singleton, S. Eberlein, C. Kemp, and R.D. Hildebrand

A performance assessment (PA) of a Single-Shell Tank Waste Management Area located at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford Site in southeastern Washington is being conducted to fulfill permitting requirements. Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses using a system level GoldSim model is being used to help quantify the importance of key input parameters on transport behavior and dose.

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Physics and Chemistry of the Earth – April 2014

M. Felipe-Sotelo, J. Hinchliff, N.D.M. Evans, D. Read, Loughborough University; D. Drury, Golder Associates; S. Williams, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

The function of the backfill material in a geological disposal facility (GDF) is to chemically condition the environment of the near field and thereby chemically retard the transport of the radionuclides present in the waste. This function of the backfill material is usually referred to as chemical containment. Diffusion experiments are being carried out over periods up to four years to assess the diffusion of Cs, Ni, Eu, Th, U and I (as I⁻) through Nirex Reference Vault Backfill (NRVB). This paper shows the results obtained during the first two years for experiments undertaken using ¹³⁷Cs and ¹²⁵I⁻ tracers with and without carrier. Comparison is made to tritiated water under identical experimental conditions. Migration profiles have been obtained and the relative retention of each radionuclide has been confirmed using digital autoradiography. Transport modelling using GoldSim has replicated experimental observations, producing comparable partition ratios (R_d) to those reported in the literature.

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Progress in Nuclear Energy, Vol. 67, pgs. 88-97 – August 2013

Michal Panik and Vladimir Necas of Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava

The article is focused on modeling and calculation of long-term radiation impact on inhabitants living near decommissioned nuclear installations. Models (scenarios) of various building applications were simulated using GoldSim software with Radionuclide Transport Module. Scenarios were selected according to information from the civil engineering business to cover the types of buildings most suitable for application of conditionally cleared material. The results of the calculations showed that conditional clearance represents no significant safety issue in the long-term. Calculated individual effective doses received by inhabitants did not exceed the given dose constraint (10 μSv/year) in case of any scenario evaluated. Detailed and transparent studies of the long-term impact of conditionally cleared materials are important especially for winning of public acceptance.

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Workreport 2013-25, Posiva Oy, Eurajoki, Finland – August 2013

Jose Luis Cormenzana

In Posiva Oy´s Safety Case "TURVA-2012", the repository system scenarios leading to radionuclide releases were been identified. Three potential causes of canister failure and radionuclide release were considered: (i) the presence of an initial defect in the copper shell of one canister that penetrates the shell completely, (ii) corrosion of the copper overpack, that occurs more rapidly if buffer density is reduced, e.g. by erosion, (iii) shear movement on fractures intersecting the deposition hole. All three failure modes were analysed deterministically. This report describes a probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) for the "initial defect in the canister" reference model.

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Physics and Chemistry of the Earth – July 2013

Alexander Carter, Martin Kelly, and Lucy Bailey, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

This paper presents a simplified analytical model to provide insight into the key performance measures of a generic disposal system for high level waste within a geological disposal facility. The model assumes a low solubility waste matrix within a corrosion resistant disposal container surrounded by a low permeability buffer. Radionuclides migrate from the disposal area through a porous geosphere to the biosphere and give a radiological dose to a receptor. The system of equations describing the migration is transformed into Laplace space and an approximation used to determine peak values for the radionuclide mass transfer rate entering the biosphere. Results from the model are compared with those from more detailed numerical models for key radionuclides in the UK high level waste inventory. Such an insight model can provide a valuable second line of argument to assist in confirming the results of more detailed models and build confidence in the safety case for a geological disposal facility.

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Conference Proceedings, WM2013 Conference – February 2013

B. Haverkamp, J. Krone, I. Shybetskyi

The Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility (RWDF) Buryakovka was constructed in 1986 as part of the intervention measures after the accident at Chernobyl NPP (ChNPP). Today, RWDF Buryakovka is still being operated but its maximum capacity is nearly reached. Plans for enlargement of the facility exist since more than 10 years but have not been implemented yet. A safety analysis report of the facility in its current state (SAR) and a preliminary safety analysis report (PSAR) based on the planned enlargement were prepared. For both safety analysis reports, SAR and PSAR, the assessment of the long-term safety led to results that were either within regulatory limits or within the limits allowing for a specific situational evaluation by the regulator. The repository model was built in GoldSim to carry out the long-term calculations using the Radionuclide Transport Module, which takes not only care of the transport equations describing the mass transport between the different compartments of the model but also of radioactive decay and ingrowth of daughter nuclides with time.

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Conference Proceedings, WM2013 Conference – February 2013

E. Biurrun, A. Lázaro, I. Stefanova, B. Haverkamp, A. Miralles

Due to the early decommissioning of four Water-Water Energy Reactors (WWER) 440-V230 reactors at the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) near the city of Kozloduy in Bulgaria, large amounts of low and intermediate radioactive waste will arise much earlier than initially scheduled. In or-der to manage the radioactive waste from the early decommissioning, Bulgaria has intensified its efforts to provide a near surface disposal facility at Radiana with the required capacity. To this end, a project was launched to provide the complete technical planning including the preparation of the Intermediate Safety Assessment Report. Preliminary results of operational and long-term safety show compliance with the Bulgarian regulatory requirements. The long-term calculations carried out for the Radiana site are also a good example of how analysis of safety assessment results can be used for iterative improvements of the assessment by pointing out uncertainties and areas of future investigations to reduce such uncertainties in regard to the potential radiological impact. GoldSim was used to estimate the long-term evolution of the future repository at Radiana predicted a maximum total annual dose for members of the critical group, which is carried to approximately 80 % by C-14 for a specific ingestion pathway. Based on this result and the outcome of the sensitivity analysis, existing uncertainties were evaluated and areas for reasonable future investigations to reduce these uncertainties were identified.

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Sandia National Laboratories – January 2013

Teklu Hadgu, Bill W. Arnold, Joon Hyub Lee, Geoff A. Freeze, Palmer Vaughn, Peter N. Swift, Cédric J. Sallaberry

The concept of disposal of high-level radioactive waste in deep boreholes, and probabilistic performance assessment (PA) of a generic disposal system are described. A series of preliminary PA simulations, conducted to evaluate the possible migration of radionuclides to an accessible environment, are presented. The PA simulations provide estimates of radionuclide releases and mean annual radiation doses. The simulations utilized vertical fluxes from a thermal-hydrology process model. Of particular interest to the present study is an analysis of the sensitivity of borehole and surrounding rock permeability values. The analysis provides a bounding exercise of the performance of a generic deep borehole disposal system.

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Mineralogical Magazine – December 2012

R. Kowe and S. Norris

This paper gives an overview of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Radioactive Waste Management Directorate approach to representing the biosphere in post-closure safety assessment studies. The assessments consider potential releases of radionuclides and chemically toxic substances from a geological disposal facility that may reach the biosphere by transport in groundwater and gas. It gives an outline of the key processes and understanding underpinning the representation of the biosphere and how the biosphere may evolve over the long timescales of relevance to post-closure safety. The current biosphere assessment approach and associated models are supported by research studies and collaboration that ensure they are consistent with international recommendations. Research studies are also commissioned to reduce uncertainty surrounding key contaminants and potential exposure pathways and to help ensure that the approach and models are adaptable and flexible enough to incorporate future developments, as the geological disposal programme moves towards site selection.

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Mineralogical Magazine – December 2012

V. Havlová, P. Vecerník, J. Najser, K. Sosna, and K. Breiter

An extensive set of porosity, ε, effective diffusion coefficient, De, and hydraulic conductivity, K, data were obtained from 45 granitic samples from the Bohemian Massif, Czech Republic. The measured dataset can be used to define parameter ranges for data to be used in safety assessment calculations for a deep (>400 m) radioactive waste repository, even though the samples originated from shallower depths (<108 m). The dataset can also be used for other purposes, such as evaluating the migration of contaminants in granitic rock (e.g. from shallow intermediate-level radioactive waste repositories and chemical waste repositories). Sample relaxation and ageing processes should be taken into account in research otherwise migration parameters might be overestimated in comparisons between lab results and those determined in situ.

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WM2012 Conference – February 2012

Joon H. Lee, Bill W. Arnold, Peter N. Swift, Teklu Hadgu, Geoff Freeze, and Yifeng Wang, Sandia National Laboratories

A deep borehole repository is one of the four geologic disposal system options currently under study by the U.S. DOE to support the development of a long-term strategy for geologic disposal of commercial used nuclear fuel (UNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW). The immediate goal of the generic deep borehole repository study is to develop the necessary modeling tools to evaluate and improve the understanding of the repository system response and processes relevant to long-term disposal of UNF and HLW in a deep borehole. A prototype performance assessment model for a generic deep borehole repository has been developed using the approach for a mined geological repository. The preliminary results from the simplified deep borehole generic repository performance assessment indicate that soluble, non-sorbing (or weakly sorbing) fission product radionuclides, such as I-129, Se-79 and Cl-36, are the likely major dose contributors, and that the annual radiation doses to hypothetical future humans associated with those releases may be extremely small. While much work needs to be done to validate the model assumptions and parameters, these preliminary results highlight the importance of a robust seal design in assuring long-term isolation, and suggest that deep boreholes may be a viable alternative to mined repositories for disposal of both HLW and UNF.

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WM2012 Conference, Phoenix, AZ – February 2012

David L. Pentz, Ralph H. Stoll, John T . Greeves, Predicus LLC; R. Ian Miller, GoldSim Technology Group; W. Mark Nutt, Argonne National Laboratory

The PRISM (Prioritization Risk Integration Simulation Model), a computer model was developed to support the Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) in its mission to clean up the environmental legacy from the Nation’s nuclear weapons materials production complex. PRISM provides a comprehensive, fully integrated planning tool that can tie together DOE-EM's projects. It is designed to help DOE managers develop sound, risk-informed business practices and defend program decisions. It provides a better ability to understand and manage programmatic risks.

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FIU Electronic Theses Dissertations, Paper S35 – November 2011

Ortez Garay, Cristian A. (Florida International University)

This is a Master's Thesis describing the methodology used to estimate mercury concentrations and risk of exceeding drinking water standards at a receptor well, located near a waste management facility at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. GoldSim was used to evaluate the risk based on uncertainty of hydrological and soil parameters used to estimate potential mercury releases from a future containment system. Sensitivity analysis was used to determine the parameters that the model is most sensitive to. Using Monte Carlo analysis, the risk was estimated for various design periods and the overall risk of drinking water contamination was well below standard limits.

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Report prepared for U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Contract No. NRC–02–07–006 – August 2011

Chris Markley et al. (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission)

This document is a user guide that describes the operation and capabilities of the Scoping of Options and Analyzing Risk (SOAR) model. The SOAR model is designed to provide the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff timely risk and performance insights for a variety of potential high-level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal options. The SOAR model is an analytic scoping tool that the staff will use to develop an effective and efficient risk-informed, performance-based licensing program for geologic disposal of HLW.

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LLWR/ESC/R(11)10028 – May 2011

LLW Repository Ltd

The Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) is the United Kingdom’s principal facility for the disposal of solid low-level radioactive waste. The LLWR is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and operated on behalf of the NDA by a Site Licence Company (SLC) – LLW Repository Ltd.

This report is one of a series of reports that present the evidence underpinning the 2011 Environmental Safety Case for the LLWR – the 2011 ESC. The objective of this report is to assess the radiological impacts to humans that may occur in the long term, as a result of disposal of solid radioactive waste at the LLWR.

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WM2011 Conference, Phoenix, AZ – March 2011

Robert Hiergesell and Glenn Taylor, Savannah River National Laboratory

An investigation was conducted to compare and evaluate contaminant transport results of two model codes, GoldSim and PORFLOW, using a simple 1-D string of elements in each code. The comparisons were made solely in terms of the ability of each code to perform contaminant transport. The purpose of the investigation was to establish a basis for, and to validate follow-on work that was conducted in which a 1-D GoldSim model developed by abstracting information from PORFLOW 2-D and 3-D unsaturated and saturated zone models and then benchmarked to produce equivalent contaminant transport results. Although prior validation and verification work has been conducted for both PORFLOW and GoldSim a direct comparison of results from both codes, when evaluating the same model domain, was conducted to confirm this work and justify the benchmarking exercises that compared 1-D to multi-dimensional models.

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WM2011 Proceedings – March 2011

Kevin G. Brown, Vanderbilt University; Frank Smith and Gregory Flach, Savannah River National Laboratory

The Cementitious Barriers Partnership (CBP) Project is a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration supported by the United States Department of Energy (US DOE) Office of Waste Processing. The objective of the CBP project is to develop a set of tools to improve understanding and prediction of the long-term structural, hydraulic, and chemical performance of cementitious barriers used in nuclear applications. The project is focused on reducing the uncertainties of current methodologies for assessing cementitious barrier performance and increasing the consistency and transparency of the assessment process. To better characterize the uncertainties in the models used to predict barrier performance, GoldSim is used as a probabilistic framework with interfaces to external codes for specific calculations. A general dynamic-link library (DLL) interface has been developed to link GoldSim with external codes. The DLL that performs the linking function is designed to take a list of code inputs from GoldSim, create an input file for the external application, run the external code, and return a list of outputs, read from files created by the external application, back to GoldSim for analysis. Although currently used by CBP, the DLL is generic and can be used for a wide variety of external codes that need to be examined probabilistically. Use of the DLL to couple external codes to GoldSim helps enable improved risk-informed, performance-based decision-making and supports several of the strategic initiatives in the DOE Office of Environmental Management Engineering & Technology Roadmap.

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Environment Agency Report SC060055 – September 2010

A. Bond, M.J. Egan, R. Metcalfe, P.Robinson, G.Towler (Quintessa)

The primary aim of this report was to summarize and analyse existing knowledge on processes that could influence the performance of an EBS and hence the long-term safety performance of a repository. After reviewing the safety functions attributed to various barrier components by radioactive waste management programmes across the world, and identifying groups of features, events and processes (FEPs) that describe these safety functions and threats to these safety functions, calculations using GoldSim were carried out to explore the significance of each of these FEPs as controls on the performance of barrier components.

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Posiva Working Report 2010-14, Posiva Oy, Finland – March 2010

Veli-Matti Pulkkanen and Henrik Nordman

This report describes the use of GoldSim to model the near-field radionuclide transport processes in a KBS-3V type of nuclear waste repository in Finland.

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Nuclear Engineering and Technology, Vol. 42, No. 1 – February 2010

Yongsoo Hwang and Chul-Hyung Kang, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute

This paper discusses use of GoldSim to evaluate the potential radionuclide release from a repository based on the Advanced Korean Reference Disposal System (A-KRS). Among other advantages, the development of the A-KRS promises a significant reduction of the repository area due to the removal of decay heat from a certain number of fission products such as Sr-90 and Cs-137.

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Final Report, ESTCP Project ER-200704 – January 2010

Falta, Ronald W.; Newell, Charles J.; Rao, P. Suresh C.; Liang, Hailian; Farhat, Shahla K.; Basu, Nandita

The objective of this project was to develop a new probabilistic remediation modeling program, Probabilistic Remediation Evaluation Model for chlorinated Solvents (PREMChlor), for simultaneously evaluating the effectiveness of source and plume remediation considering the uncertainties in all major parameters, thereby supporting the remediation selection process. PREMChlor was developed by linking the analytical model REMChlor to a Monte Carlo modeling package, GoldSim, via a FORTRAN Dynamic Link Library (DLL) application.

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Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Environmental Remediation And Radioactive Waste Management ICEM 2009 – October 2009

Yongsoo Hwang and Ian Miller

This paper describes an integrated model developed by the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to simulate options for managing spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in South Korea.

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Progress in Nuclear Energy Volume 51, Issues 6-7, pgs. 746-759 – August 2009

Youn-Myong Lee and Yongsoo Hwang, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute

This article describes a GoldSim model of a hypothetical high level waste repository in South Korea, and describes the model's response to three hypothetical situations (groundwater intrusion, earthquake and accidental human intrusion).

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Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management XXXII, MRS Proceedings, Volume 1124 – October 2008

Karen Pinkston, David W. Esh, Christopher J. Grossman

This paper discusses a GoldSim model built by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to assess the potential impacts of disposal of large quantities of depleted uranium in a near-surface disposal facility.

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Transactions of the Korean Nuclear Society Autmn Meeting, PyeongChang, Korea – October 2007

Youn-Myoung Lee and Yongsoo Hwang, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute

To demonstrate the performance of a repository, GoldSim was used to examine the dose exposure rate to people due to long-term nuclide releases from a high-level waste repository and the results are compared to that of a similar model built in AMBER. The GoldSim model integrates the results of complex nuclide transport models through engineered barriers and geological fractured rock media surrounding an HLW repository site for a consecutive transport through a biosphere.

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Czechoslovak Journal of Physics, Volume 56, D623-D628 – December 2006

D. Vopálka, Czech Technical University in Prague; D. Lukin and A. Vokál, Nuclear Research Institute Rez

This paper describes GoldSim modeling techniques for several different processes that occur in a deep geologic repository for the storage of nuclear waste.

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Conference Proceedings, WM'05 Conference, Tucson, AZ. – March 2005

B. Haverkamp, E. Biurrun, with DBE TECHNOLOGY GmbH, and M. Kucerka with Radioactive Waste Repository Authority, Czech Republic

The Richard Repository, situated at the outskirts of Litoměřice in the North of Czech Republic, has served as a repository for low and intermediate level institutional radioactive waste since the mid nineteen-sixties. Up to now, some 25,000 waste packages and thereby a significant activity of about 1015 Bq have been disposed of. Richard, originally a limestone mine excavated into a hill close to the Elbe River, was later used for military production leaving a number of wellconditioned underground cavities.In order to quantify the radiological consequences of the changed closure concept, the 2002 SA has been adapted to acknowledge the differences in the source term resulting from the changed technical concept. Also the previously deterministic model has been exchanged by a computer model that also allows probabilistic calculations using the GoldSim

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Proceedings of the NUCEF2005 Symposium – February 2005

Osvaldo Pensado and Sitakanta Mohanty, Southwest Research Institute; Takeshi Kanno and Yoshikatsu Tochigi, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd.

This paper and website describes a project to build a GoldSim model for a hypothetical high-level waste repository in Japan.

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Wired Magazine – November 2004

David Ewing Duncan

This Wired Magazine article provides a general overview of the Yucca Mountain project including a discussion of how GoldSim is used to try quantify the performance of the repository into the distant future.

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Proceedings of the 2003 Waste Management Symposium – February 2003

Jhon Carilli, U. S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office. Bruce Crowe, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Paul Black, John Tauxe, Tom Stockton, and Kate Catlett, Neptune and Company; Vefa Yucel, Bechtel Nevada

This paper describes performance assessment activity for low-level waste facilities at the Nevada Test Site.

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Proceedings of the 2002 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting – October 2002

David Esh, Anna Bradford, Kristina Banovac, and Jennifer Davis, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission

This paper discusses a performance assessment model of closure of a radioactive waste tank developed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, using GoldSim, to independently verify results from a Department of Energy assessment of the same project.

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