Removal of spent fuel sheared powder for decommissioning of Main Plant

Nishino, Saki; Okada, Jumpei; Watanabe, Kazuki; Furuuchi, Yuta; Yokota, Satoru; Yada, Yuji; Kusaka, Shota; Morokado, Shiori; Nakamura, Yoshinobu

JAEA-Technology 2023-011, 39 Pages, 2023/06

JAEA-Technology-2023-011.pdf:2.51MB

Tokai Reprocessing Plant (TRP) which shifted to decommissioning phase in 2014 had nuclear fuel materials such as the spent fuel sheared powder, the diluted plutonium solution and the uranium solution in a part of the reprocessing main equipment because TRP intended to resume reprocessing operations when it suspended the operations in 2007. Therefore, we have planned to remove these nuclear materials in sequence as Flush-out before beginning the decommissioning, and conducted removal of the spent fuel sheared powder as the first stage. The spent fuel sheared powder that had accumulated in the cell of the Main Plant (MP) as a result of the spent fuel shearing process was recovered from the cell floor, the shearing machine and the distributor between April 2016 and April 2017 as part of maintenance. Removing the recovered spent fuel sheared powder was conducted between June 2022 and September 2022. In this work, the recovered powder was dissolved in nitric acid at the dissolver in a small amount in order to remove it safely and early, and the dissolved solution was sent to the highly radioactive waste storage tanks without separating uranium and plutonium. Then, the dissolved solution transfer route was rinsed with nitric acid and water. Although about 15 years had passed since previous process operations, the removing work was successfully completed without any equipment failure because of the organization of a system that combines veterans experienced the operation with young workers, careful equipment inspections, and worker education and training. Removing this powder was conducted after revising the decommissioning project and obtaining approval from the Nuclear Regulation Authority owing to operating a part of process equipment.

Current status of the control system for J-PARC accelerator complex

Yoshikawa, Hiroshi; Sakaki, Hironao; Sako, Hiroyuki; Takahashi, Hiroki; Shen, G.; Kato, Yuko; Ito, Yuichi; Ikeda, Hiroshi*; Ishiyama, Tatsuya*; Tsuchiya, Hitoshi*; et al.

Proceedings of International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems (ICALEPCS '07) (CD-ROM), p.62 - 64, 2007/10

J-PARC is a large scale facility of the proton accelerators for the multi-purpose of scientific researches in Japan. This facility consists of three accelerators and three experimental stations. Now, J-PARC is under construction, and LINAC is operated for one year, 3GeV synchrotron has just started the commissioning in this October the 1st. The completion of this facility will be next summer. The control system of accelerators established fundamental performance for the initial commissioning. The most important requirement to the control system of this facility is to minimize the activation of accelerator devices. In this paper, we show that the performances of each layer of this control system have been achieved in the initial stage.

Quantitative analysis of transport of fixed nitrogen from soybean nodule using N as a tracer

Hung, N. V. P.; Watanabe, Shiori*; Ishikawa, Shinji*; Otake, Norikuni*; Sueyoshi, Kuni*; Ishii, Satomi; Fujimaki, Shu; Oyama, Takuji*; Yashima, Hiroyuki*

no journal, , 

Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF) plays an important role in the plant life especial in legume species. Through symbiotic fixation process, legume plants can use atmospheric nitrogen as nutritional source for their growth and development. Soybean plants have an ability to fix dinitrogen (N) in the atmosphere in root nodules and absorb nitrogen either from fertilizer or soil N. Soybean needs a large amount of N to synthesize seed storage protein especial in stage of pod filling. Many studies have been carried out in the fields of BNF, but up to now the accurate measurement of transport rate of fixed N has not determined yet. Until now, there are many methods to investigate nitrogen fixation and transportation in leguminous plants. This study used N isotope as a tracer to quantify nitrogen fixation and the transport rate of fixed N to various parts of shoots and roots in nodulated soybean plants during relatively short time from 1 h to 8h.