Survey of educational curriculum for nuclear engineering of University in Japan (Contract research)

Sato, Koichi; Kato, Hiroshi; Ishikawa, Fumitaka; Hasegawa, Makoto; Nakazaki, Masayoshi*

JAEA-Review 2008-030, 112 Pages, 2008/09

JAEA-Review-2008-030.pdf:7.53MB

Japan Atomic Energy Agency has been advancing the construction of Japan Nuclear Education Network aiming at the human resources development. Japan Nuclear Education Network executes the practical training and the remote education system. The purpose of the survey is to grasp the present status of educational curriculum for nuclear engineering of University in Japan, and to be helpful for our activities to extend JNEN in future. The present survey leads to the following conclusions. About 80% of seventeen universities hope the cooperation with another university and related institutions to maintain and continue the educational curriculum systematically of nuclear engineering. Their universities request the practical training for nuclear engineering, the dispatch of lecturers each other, the remote educational system in case of participation.

Approach for domestic procurement of standard material (LSD spike) for isotope dilution mass spectrometry

Ishikawa, Fumitaka; Abe, Tomoyuki; Chiba, Masahiko; Suzuki, Toru; Kuno, Yusuke; Sumi, Mika

no journal, , 

The accountancy analysis of the nuclear fuel material at Plutonium Fuel Development Center of JAEA is performed by isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS). The standard material which called LSD spike is always required for IDMS and indispensable for the facilities where the nuclear fuel material is handled. However, the LSD spike and Pu material has been supplied from foreign countries and those transportation is becoming more difficult recently. The trend of an overseas supply may influence the facilities operation at JAEA in the future. Therefore, research and development of the domestic LSD spike and base material has been performed at JAEA. This report presents the current state and the future plan for the technological development.

Determination of Pu concentration of Pu spot of a MOXfuel pellet by using the CR-39

Hosogane, Tatsuya; Ishikawa, Fumitaka; Kageyama, Tomio; Nakazawa, Hiroaki

no journal, , 

Applicability of CR-39, a plastic detector has been examined to apply for the alpha autoradiograph method to determine Pu spot diameter and its Pu concentration in the MOX fuel pellet, that traditionally determined with nitratecellulose film (Pu spot; where segregated Pu locates). This paper reports the results of performance evaluation test of determination of Pu concentration of Pu spot of a MOX fuel pellet by using the CR-39

Application of CR-39 plastic nuclear track detectors for quality assurance of MOX fuel pellet

Kodaira, Satoshi*; Yasuda, Nakahiro*; Hosogane, Tatsuya; Ishikawa, Fumitaka; Kageyama, Tomio; Sato, Mitsuhiro

no journal, , 

The plutonium-thermal use is expected as one of the approach for reuse of spent uranium fuel in nuclear power generation. On the other hand, many kinds of nuclides including Pu with extremely long half-lives are generated in the used fuels, which would be problems for storage and control of radioactive waste. The MOX (Mixed Oxide) consisting of plutonium dioxide enriched with 4-9% Pu and uranium oxide from spent uranium fuel would allow to reduce half-lives of radioactive waste significantly through the nuclear fission. The quality of MOX pellet depends on the homogeneous dispersion of Pu. The region of highly concentrated Pu is sometimes observed as "Pu spot" in the pellet, which has the potential of anomalous combustion localized at that region. The detection of Pu spot and evaluation of its size and concentration are one of the important quality assurance of MOX pellet for the safety use in the nuclear power plant. We have applied CR-39 plastic nuclear track detectors for the measurement of Pu spot inside MOX pellet. CR-39 can image a cross-section of MOX pellet by recording -particle tracks from Pu in the pellet, like autoradiography. The Pu spot is visibly imaged as a "black spot" due to the dense tracks compared to homogeneously dispersed region. Conventionally, the Pu spot measurement has been carried out with manual scanning, which takes much longer times and huge amount of human work. We have developed the automatic detection and measurement system of Pu spot recorded on CR-39 by the image processing with filtering and clustering algorithms. The detection efficiency with CR-39 is achieved to be almost 100% compared with conventional manual scanning result. It provides more information about the number, size and position of Pu spot.

Development of automatic detection and measurement system for the Pu spot in the MOX fuel pellet

Tazawa, Yuto; Hosogane, Tatsuya; Ishikawa, Fumitaka; Kayano, Masashi; Matsuyama, Kazutomi; Saito, Kosuke; Oishi, Shinichi*; Nakajima, Hiroshi*

no journal, , 

no abstracts in English