J-PARC LINAC 50 Hz operation verification study

Kondo, Yasuhiro; Chimura, Motoki; Cicek, E.*; Fukui, Yuji*; Futatsukawa, Kenta*; Fuwa, Yasuhiro; Goto, Rikuto*; Hirano, Koichiro; Ishikawa, Masaki*; Ito, Takashi; et al.

Proceedings of 22nd Annual Meeting of Particle Accelerator Society of Japan (Internet), p.124 - 129, 2026/03

https://www.pasj.jp/web_publish/pasj2025/proceedings/PDF/FRO6/FRO601.pdf

Various upgrade plans of the J-PARC linac are underway, and repetition-rate doubling project is one of the most important part. Currently, the linac supplies a 400~MeV H ion beam to the 3~GeV synchrotron (RCS) at a repetition rate of 25~Hz. However, to deliver the beam to both RCS and proton-beam irradiation facility under planning, it is necessary to raise the repetition rate from 25~Hz to 50~Hz. Prior to construction of the beamline to the irradiation facility, we conducted a verification of the 50~Hz operation of all the linac apparatus simultaneously within the current operational limits in May 2025. And also, the verification of the 50~Hz operation of the particle counter system, which is one of the most important safety device of the J-PARC accelerator, was conducted. As a result, any significant problems were not found out, and it is now ready for the upcoming 50~Hz-beam acceleration demonstration. This paper describes this details of the demonstration of the 50~Hz operation, without beam acceleration, of the J-PARC linac.

Hydroxyl group/fluorine disorder in deuterated magnesium hydroxyfluoride and behaviors of hydrogen bonds under high pressure

He, X.*; Kagi, Hiroyuki*; Komatsu, Kazuki*; Iizuka, Riko*; Okajima, Hajime*; Hattori, Takanori; Sano, Asami; Machida, Shinichi*; Abe, Jun*; Goto, Hirotada*; et al.

Journal of Molecular Structure, 1310, p.138271_1 - 138271_8, 2024/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molstruc.2024.138271

High-pressure responses of the O-DF hydrogen bonds in deuterated magnesium hydroxyfluoride were investigated using neutron powder diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The Rietveld analysis at ambient conditions revealed a chemical formula of Mg(OD)F and hydroxyl group/fluorine disorder (OD/F disorder) in the crystal structure, which gave rise to two hydrogen-bonding configurations. The Rietveld analysis showed the hydrogen-bonding geometries remains up to 9.8 GPa, indicating no pressure-induced strengthening of hydrogen bonds. The Raman spectra at ambient conditions showed three hydroxyl stretching bands at 2613, 2694, and 2718 cm. The high frequencies of the O-D stretching modes indicated that the hydroxyls should be involved in weak or none hydrogen-bonding interactions. Up to 20.2 GPa, the mode initially centered at 2694 cm displayed a pressure-induced blue shift, revealing no strengthening of hydrogen bonds under compression. We discuss the existence of hydrogen bonds and the causes of the blue-shifting hydroxyls at ambient and at high pressures.

PSTEP: Project for solar-terrestrial environment prediction

Kusano, Kanya*; Ichimoto, Kiyoshi*; Ishii, Mamoru*; Miyoshi, Yoshizumi*; Yoden, Shigeo*; Akiyoshi, Hideharu*; Asai, Ayumi*; Ebihara, Yusuke*; Fujiwara, Hitoshi*; Goto, Tadanori*; et al.

Earth, Planets and Space (Internet), 73(1), p.159_1 - 159_29, 2021/12

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-021-01486-1

The PSTEP is a nationwide research collaboration in Japan and was conducted from April 2015 to March 2020, supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. It has made a significant progress in space weather research and operational forecasts, publishing over 500 refereed journal papers and organizing four international symposiums, various workshops and seminars, and summer school for graduate students at Rikubetsu in 2017. This paper is a summary report of the PSTEP and describes the major research achievements it produced.

Observation of dihydrogen bonds in high-pressure phases of ammonia borane by X-ray and neutron diffraction measurements

Nakano, Satoshi*; Sano, Asami; Hattori, Takanori; Machida, Shinichi*; Komatsu, Kazuki*; Fujihisa, Hiroshi*; Yamawaki, Hiroshi*; Goto, Yoshito*; Kikegawa, Takumi*

Inorganic Chemistry, 60(5), p.3065 - 3073, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.0c03345

X-ray and neutron diffraction analyses of ammonia borane were conducted at ambient and high pressures. The H-H distance in dihydrogen bonds was shorter than twice the van der Waals radius (2.4 ). The half of the dihydrogen bonds were broken on phase transition from AP to the first high pressure phase (HP1) at approximately 1.2 GPa as revealed by an increase in the H-H distances. On further pressure increase, all of the H-H distances became shorter than 2.4 again, implying the pressure-induced reformation of the dihydrogen bonds. Furthermore, the HP1 transformed to the second one with the structure of (Z = 2) at about 11 GPa. In this phase transition, the inclination of the molecule axis became larger and the number of types of dihydrogen bonds increased from 6 to 11. Just before the third transition at 18.9 GPa, the shortest dihydrogen bond decreased to 1.65 . The present study experimentally first confirmed the breakage and reformation of the dihydrogen bonds by the structural change under pressure.

Study on loss-of-cooling and loss-of-coolant accidents in spent fuel pool, 1; Overview

Kaji, Yoshiyuki; Nemoto, Yoshiyuki; Nagatake, Taku; Yoshida, Hiroyuki; Tojo, Masayuki*; Goto, Daisuke*; Nishimura, Satoshi*; Suzuki, Hiroaki*; Yamato, Masaaki*; Watanabe, Satoshi*

Proceedings of 27th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-27) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2019/05

https://doi.org/10.1299/jsmeicone.2019.27.1343

In this research program, cladding oxidation model in SFP accident condition, and numerical simulation method to evaluate capability of spray cooling system which was deployed for spent fuel cooling during SFP accident, have been developed. These were introduced into the severe accident codes such as MAAP and SAMPSON, and SFP accident analyses were conducted. Analyses using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code were conducted as well for the comparison with SA code analyses and investigation of detail in the SFP accident. In addition, three-dimensional criticality analysis method was developed as well, and safer loading pattern of spent fuels in pool was investigated.

Determination of fusion barrier distributions from quasielastic scattering cross sections towards superheavy nuclei synthesis

Tanaka, Taiki*; Narikiyo, Yoshihiro*; Morita, Kosuke*; Fujita, Kunihiro*; Kaji, Daiya*; Morimoto, Koji*; Yamaki, Sayaka*; Wakabayashi, Yasuo*; Tanaka, Kengo*; Takeyama, Mirei*; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 87(1), p.014201_1 - 014201_9, 2018/01

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.87.014201

Excitation functions of quasielastic scattering cross sections for the Ca + Pb, Ti + Pb, and Ca + Cm reactions were successfully measured by using the gas-filled recoil-ion separator GARIS. Fusion barrier distributions were extracted from these data, and compared with the coupled-channels calculations. It was found that the peak energies of the barrier distributions for the Ca + Pb and Ti + Pb systems coincide with those of the 2n evaporation channel cross sections for the systems, while that of the Ca + Cm is located slightly below the 4n evaporation ones. This results provide us helpful information to predict the optimum beam energy to synthesize superheavy nuclei.

Replacement of the glove port equipped with glove box in Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Facility

Horigome, Kazushi; Taguchi, Shigeo; Nishida, Naoki; Goto, Yuichi; Inada, Satoshi; Kuno, Takehiko

Nihon Hozen Gakkai Dai-14-Kai Gakujutsu Koenkai Yoshishu, p.381 - 384, 2017/08

no abstracts in English

Simultaneous measurement of neutron-induced fission and capture cross sections for Am at neutron energies below fission threshold

Hirose, Kentaro; Nishio, Katsuhisa; Makii, Hiroyuki; Nishinaka, Ichiro*; Ota, Shuya*; Nagayama, Tatsuro*; Tamura, Nobuyuki*; Goto, Shinichi*; Andreyev, A. N.; Vermeulen, M. J.; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 856, p.133 - 138, 2017/06

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2016.12.021

A Study on transmutation of LLFPs using various types of HTGRs

Kora, Kazuki*; Nakaya, Hiroyuki*; Matsuura, Hideaki*; Goto, Minoru; Nakagawa, Shigeaki; Shimakawa, Satoshi*

Nuclear Engineering and Design, 300, p.330 - 338, 2016/04

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2016.01.030

In order to investigate the potential of high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) for transmutation of long-lived fission products (LLFPs), numerical simulation of four types of HTGRs were carried out. In addition to the gas-turbine high temperature reactor system "GTHTR300", a small modular HTGR plant "HTR50S" and two types of plutonium burner HTGRs "Clean Burn with MA" and "Clean Burn without MA" were considered. The simulation results show that an early realization of LLFP transmutation using a compact HTGR may be possible since the HTR50S can transmute fair amount of LLFPs for its thermal output. The Clean Burn with MA can transmute a limited amount of LLFPs. However, an efficient LLFP transmutation using the Clean Burn without MA seems to be convincing as it is able to achieve very high burn-ups and produce LLFP transmutation more than GTHTR300. Based on these results, we propose utilization of variety of HTGRs for LLFP transmutation and storage.

Evaluation of tritium confinement performance of alumina and zirconium for tritium production in a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor for fusion reactors

Katayama, Kazunari*; Ushida, Hiroki*; Matsuura, Hideaki*; Fukada, Satoshi*; Goto, Minoru; Nakagawa, Shigeaki

Fusion Science and Technology, 68(3), p.662 - 668, 2015/10

https://doi.org/10.13182/FST14-968

Tritium production utilizing nuclear reactions by neutron and lithium in a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor is attractive for development of a fusion reactor. From viewpoints of tritium safety and production efficiency, tritium confinement technique is an important issue. It is known that alumina has high resistance for gas permeation. In this study, hydrogen permeation experiments in commercial alumina tubes were conducted and hydrogen permeability, diffusivity and solubility was evaluated. By using obtained data, tritium permeation behavior from an AlO-coated Li-compound particle was simulated. Additionally, by using literature data for hydrogen behavior in zirconium, an effect of Zr incorporation into an AlO coating on tritium permeation was discussed. It was indicated that the majority of produced tritium was released through the AlO coating above 500C. However, it is expected that total tritium leak is suppressed to below 0.67% of total tritium produced at 500C by incorporating Zr fine particles into the inside of AlO coating.