OpenWorkFlow - Development of an open-source synthesis-platform for safety investigations in the site selection process

The identification of appropriate locations for secure nuclear waste disposal, a crucial aspect of Germany's nuclear phase-out strategy, remains a significant scientific, technical, and political challenge worldwide. The selection and safety assessment of sites demand extensive employment of numerical methods. The OpenWorkFlow project, initiated by Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE), is developing a new, open synthesis platform to virtualise repository systems. The simulation platform will evaluate far-field and near-field processes, aiding the site selection process first and geotechnical design of repository systems later on. Automated simulation and analysis pipelines developed in this project ensure the verifiability and reproducibility of all simulation results and the modularity of workflows brings flexibility, continuity and maintainability.

This project defines high scientific benchmarks and standards for numerical models and software development for the repository search in Germany. OpenWorkFlow as an efficient and holistic platform for numerical modelling will contribute to a science-based, transparent, and precise execution of the necessary safety assessments. This project includes all theoretical, numerical and computational methods and tools, including a virtual reality framework. OpenWorkFlow will be continuously developed by the core project team, but will also actively involve the community through its open concept (e.g. through the interactive benchmarking platform). This will create a win-win situation in the long run.

This talk is based on the paper Christoph Lehmann, Lars Bilke, Jörg Buchwald, Nico Graebling, Norbert Grunwald, Julian Heinze, Tobias Meisel, Renchao Lu, Dmitri Naumov, Karsten Rink, Ozan Özgür Sen, Philipp Selzer, Haibing Shao, Wenqing Wang, Florian Zill, Thomas Nagel, and Olaf Kolditz. Openworkflow - development of an open-source synthesis-platform for safety investigations in the site selection process. Grundwasser, 2024. in print.