Practical Application of the KMS: 2) Site Characterisation

The characterisation of potential repository sites will produce huge volumes of information, which must be correlated, quality assured, integrated, analysed, documented and archived in a rigorous and efficient manner. While some of this work involves rather routine data handling that may be easily automated, much of it requires input of tacit knowledge which involves the experience of expert staff. To provide support for the Japanese implementer and also the regulator, a JAEA team is attempting to capture both Japanese and international geosynthesis experience within a Knowledge Management System (KMS) framework, which is termed ISIS. This is a hybrid system that combines “smart” software with human experts, although an aim is to capture tacit knowledge within expert systems to the maximum extent practicable. Initial tests, based mainly on field work carried out by JAEA at the sites of the Mizunami and Horonobe underground research laboratories, have utilised expert systems as modules in a “blackboard system” approach to planning or implementing the processing of field data. Examples are presented of sub-systems where this approach has already been demonstrated and perspectives for more extensive application to integrated geosynthesis management are discussed.