The engineered barrier system is a basic element in the design of repository to isolate high level radioactive waste (HLW). In this system, the clay barrier plays a prominent role in dispersing the heat generated from the waste, reduce the flow of pore water from the host rock, and maintaining the structural stability of the waste canister. The compacted expansive clay (generally bentonite blocks) is initially in unsaturated state. During the life time of the repository, the barrier will undergo different coupled thermal, hydrological and mechanical (THM) phenomena due to heating (from the heat-emitting nuclear waste) and hydration (from the saturated host rock). The design of nuclear waste disposal requires the prediction of the long term barrier behavior (i.e. hundred or thousand years), so numerical modeling is a basic component of the repository design. The numerical analyses are performed using mathematical THM formulation and the associated numerical code. Constitutive models are an essential part of the numerical simulations. Those constitutive models represent the intrinsic behavior of the material for the individual physical phenomenon (i.e. thermal, hydraulic and mechanical). Deterministic analyses have shown the potential of such mathematical formulations to describe the physical behavior of the engineered barrier system. However, the effect of the inherent uncertainties associated with the different constitutive models on the global behavior of the isolation system has not been explored yet. The first part of this thesis is related to application of recent probabilistic methods to understand and assess the impact of uncertainties on the global THM model response. Experimental data associated with the FEBEX project has been adopted for the case study presented in this thesis. CODE_BRIGHT, a fully coupled THM finite element program, is used to perform the numerical THM analysis. The second part of this thesis focuses on the complex mechanical behavior observed in a barrier material subjected (during 5 years) to heating and hydration under actual repository conditions The studied experiment is the (ongoing) full scale in-situ FEBEX test at Grimsel test site, Switzerland. A partial dismantling of this experiment has allowed the inspection of the barrier material subjected to varying stresses due to hydration and heating. The clay underwent both elastic and plastic volumetric deformations at different suction and temperature levels with changes in the pre-consolidation pressure and voids ratio that are difficult to explain with conventional models. In this thesis a double structure elasto plastic model is proposed to study the mechanical behavior of this barrier material. The numerical modeling was performed with CODE_BRIGHT. The study shows that the double structure model explains satisfactorily the observed changes in the mechanical behavior of the clay material.

Les détonations des mélanges gazeux CnHm/O2 (n ≥ 0) fortement dilués par un gaz inerte ainsi que les mélanges CnHm (n ≥ 0) avec l'oxydant NO2 présentent une loi de libération d'énergie chimique non monotone constituée de deux étapes réactionnelles globales plus ou moins séparées. A chaque longueur chimique caractéristique L est associée une structure cellulaire dont la largeur de cellule lambda est proportionnelle à L. L'objectif de ce travail est de comprendre, pour les applications en lien avec la sécurité d'utilisation de ces compostions notamment, l'influence de la loi de libération de l'énergie chimique de ces mélanges sur le régime hélicoïdal (limite) de propagation stationnaire des détonations dans les tubes de diamètre d obtenu lorsque lambda ≈ pi d. L'étude expérimentale, concernant les combustibles H2, CH4 et C2H6 mélangés avec O2 dilués ou non par N2 ou Ar, montre que la plage de pression initiale où le régime hélicoïdal est établi dépend étroitement de l'importance relative de la deuxième étape exothermique par rapport à la première. Les simulations numériques 3D utilisant un code hydrodynamique Eulérien et une modélisation de la loi de production chimique en une ou deux étapes globales s'accordent qualitativement aux résultats expérimentaux en obtenant le régime hélicoïdal pour chaque structure cellulaire (lambda pour les mélanges où la libération d'énergie chimique s'effectue en une seule étape ; lambda_1 et lambda_2 dans le cas d'une double structure).