Technical

The background to the projects being run at the GTS. Why are we conducting these experiments?

  Technical Background

Partners

The GTS underground facilities are also available to interested 3rd parties for underground testing and research.

  Partners

Visit

Specialist groups are welcome to visit the Grimsel Test Site from June to the middle of October.

  Visit the GTS

The purpose of the Grimsel Test Site (GTS)

It's all very well to design a waste disposal system - but how do you know that it will work ?

This is where the Grimsel Test Site (GTS) comes in - with experiments to test the long term behaviour of the engineered barriers, to develop and test tools to confirm the suitability of potential geological host rocks and to test the models used to predict its performance as a long-term barrier to radionuclide release.

Many countries have plans for repositories but in order to ensure that their designs will work, they need somewhere to test out their concepts for safe waste disposal.

These tests should be carried out in similar conditions to a repository. The GTS is a research facility several hundred metres underground which provides a relevant environment for equipment, methodology and model tests.

Research Projects

Learn more about the long-term experimental programmes carried out at the Grimsel Test Site.

  Research Projects

Grimsel Test Site (GTS) operating since 1984

The Grimsel Test Site was designed as a generic underground rock laboratory and, since the start of its operation in 1984, it has served as a source of knowledge for assessing and developing methods for the characterisation and description of fractured rocks, engineered barrier systems and their interaction with the surrounding rocks and, more generally, for contributing to the assessment of features, events and processes that influence repository performance.

The Grimsel Test Site (GTS) is located at an altitude of 1730 metres within the granitic rock of the Aar Massif in central Switzerland.

The GTS provides an environment which is analogous to that of a repository site so allowing the development and testing of equipment, methodology and models under fully realistic conditions. International partners from Europe, Asia and North America are working together at this unique facility.

The Grimsel test site (GTS) view of interior tunnels

View over the Hotel Grimsel Hospiz.