Recent progress of pulsed spallation neutron source in J-PARC

Takada, Hiroshi   ; Haga, Katsuhiro  ; Meigo, Shinichiro   ; Tatsumoto, Hideki; Kasugai, Yoshimi  ; Futakawa, Masatoshi  

Remarkable progresses were achieved at a pulsed spallation neutron source in J-PARC. One is to mitigate high-pressure waves which are generated in a mercury target and a source of serious damage on the wall of target vessel by injecting gas micro-bubbles into mercury. It was confirmed with a novel in-situ diagnostic system using a laser Doppler vibrometer that the pressure waves were certainly attenuated with the gas micro-bubbles. Secondly, the supercritical cryogenic hydrogen system has been improved to remove impurity remained in the helium circulation loop by installing a purification system. As a result, the pressure drop at the heat exchanger was suppressed successfully down to several kPa even after operating for 95 days. Furthermore, we have succeeded in sampling hydrogen gas from the cryogenic hydrogen loop during operation and verified with a Raman spectroscopy that the para-hydrogen fraction was 100%, proving the neutronic performance at the moderator is kept unchanged.