Virtual reality goes underground to monitor nuclear waste

Cologne, Germany – Research agencies in Germany have joined forces to develop what they believe will be the world’s first virtual underground research laboratory.

The project is being run by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, DBE Technology GmbH, Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation.

Developed under the VIRTUS project, the futuristic lab is designed to carry out virtual experiments on detailed models of repository mines. This is expected to aid the study and visualisation of processes and their interactions, particularly around stored nuclear waste.

In a repository for radioactive waste, processes – such as the heating of the rock resulting from the waste, possible gas generation, and the retention of radioactive material - are complex.

The German-based researchers have already simulated how heat emanating from the radioactive waste increases the rock temperature of a geological salt formation.

By making it easier to visualise these processes, virtual modelling could help guide decision-making and assessments concerning geological repository sites. The software platform could also be used to communicate such information to the public.

“With VIRTUS, we will be in a position to show the general public our results in a clear and comprehensible manner and thereby contribute to winning people’s trust in our work and to their developing of an understanding of decisions,” said project manager Tilmann Rothfuchs of GRS.

Underground laboratories currently exist in France, Switzerland and Belgium. Until now, though, German researchers have had to travel to their foreign colleagues to do research in the local underground laboratories.

Researchers from all over the world will eventually be able to use the VIRTUS platform to carry out virtual experiments, and exchange results, according to the project backers.