Accelerated diffusion test on the intact rock mass

Abstract

Contaminant transport through intact rock mass is predominantly diffusive and its modeling using the conventional laboratory tests is extremely time consuming. In addition, maintaining constant ambient conditions over a long duration is difficult and practically impossible. This necessitates modification of the conventional laboratory diffusion experiments so that the diffusion of ions through the intact rock mass is accelerated. To achieve this, researchers have employed an electric field across the samples of concrete and clays. However, the influence of the applied electric field on diffusion characteristics of the intact rock mass has not been studied in detail. With this in view, diffusion tests were conducted on the samples of chalk and sandstone by applying electric fields of different strength. Details of the testing methodology are presented in this paper. Efforts were also made to study the influence of the applied electric field on diffusion characteristics of these rocks.