Thirty years experience at the experimental fast reactor Joyo; High quality core management and irradiation field characterization technique

Maeda, Shigetaka   ; Ito, Chikara   ; Aoyama, Takafumi ; Maeda, Yukimoto; Chatani, Keiji

The experimental fast reactor Joyo of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency is the first liquid sodium fast reactor in Japan. Thirty years of successful operation of Joyo has shown excellent safety and reliability, and has contributed much to the LMFBR development program. Many kinds of irradiation experience have been accumulated to develop the fuels and materials for the prototype reactor Monju and future fast reactors. Accumulated data have been registered with OECD/NEA database with expectation that these data will be widely used. Joyo is presently temporary shutdown because of periodical inspection including in-vessel inspection and repair. After restart, Joyo will play a key role for a wide variety of science and technology fields as fast neutron irradiation bed.