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Machida, Masahiko; Yamada, Susumu; Kim, M.; Tanaka, Satoshi*; Tobita, Yasuhiro*; Iwata, Ayako*; Aoki, Yuto; Aoki, Kazuhisa; Yanagisawa, Kenichi*; Yamaguchi, Takashi; et al.
RIST News, (70), p.3 - 22, 2024/09
Inside the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (1F), there are many locations with high radiation levels due to contamination by radioactive materials that leaked from the reactor. These pose a significant obstacle to the smooth progress of decommissioning work. To help solve this issue, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), under a subsidy from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry's decommissioning and contaminated water management project, is conducting research and development on digital technologies to improve the radiation environment inside the decommissioning site. This project, titled "Development of Technology to Improve the Environment Inside Reactor Buildings (Enhancing Digital Technology for Environment and Source Distribution to Reduce Radiation Exposure)," began in April of FY 2023. In this project, the aim is to develop three interconnected systems: FrontEnd, Pro, and BackEnd. The FrontEnd system, based on the previously developed 3D-ADRES-Indoor (prototype) from FY 2021-2022, will be upgraded to a high-speed digital twin technology usable on-site. The Pro system will carry out detailed analysis in rooms such as the new office building at 1F, while the BackEnd system will serve as a database to centrally manage the collected and analyzed data. This report focuses on the FrontEnd system, which will be used on-site. After point cloud measurement, the system will quickly create a 3D mesh model, estimate the radiation source from dose rate measurements, and refine the position and intensity of the estimated source using recalculation techniques (re-observation instructions and re-estimation). The results of verification tests conducted on Unit 5 are also presented. Furthermore, the report briefly discusses the future research and development plans for this project.
Kato, Masato; Oki, Takumi; Watanabe, Masashi; Hirooka, Shun; Vauchy, R.; Ozawa, Takayuki; Uwaba, Tomoyuki; Ikusawa, Yoshihisa; Nakamura, Hiroki; Machida, Masahiko
Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 107(5), p.2998 - 3011, 2024/05
Times Cited Count：4 Percentile：34.13(Materials Science, Ceramics)
mixed oxidesVauchy, R.; Matsumoto, Taku; Hirooka, Shun; Uno, Hiroki*; Tamura, Tetsuya*; Arima, Tatsumi*; Inagaki, Yaohiro*; Idemitsu, Kazuya*; Nakamura, Hiroki; Machida, Masahiko; et al.
Journal of Nuclear Materials, 588, p.154786_1 - 154786_13, 2024/01
Times Cited Count：6 Percentile：85.99(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)Kato, Masato; Machida, Masahiko; Hirooka, Shun; Nakamichi, Shinya; Ikusawa, Yoshihisa; Nakamura, Hiroki; Kobayashi, Keita; Ozawa, Takayuki; Maeda, Koji; Sasaki, Shinji; et al.
Materials Science and Fuel Technologies of Uranium and Plutonium mixed Oxide, 171 Pages, 2022/10
Innovative and advanced nuclear reactors using plutonium fuel has been developed in each country. In order to develop a new nuclear fuel, irradiation tests are indispensable, and it is necessary to demonstrate the performance and safety of nuclear fuels. If we can develop a technology that accurately simulates irradiation behavior as a technology that complements the irradiation test, the cost, time, and labor involved in nuclear fuel research and development will be greatly reduced. And safety and reliability can be significantly improved through simulation of nuclear fuel irradiation behavior. In order to evaluate the performance of nuclear fuel, it is necessary to know the physical and chemical properties of the fuel at high temperatures. And it is indispensable to develop a behavior model that describes various phenomena that occur during irradiation. In previous research and development, empirical methods with fitting parameters have been used in many parts of model development. However, empirical techniques can give very different results in areas where there is no data. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to construct a scientific descriptive model that can extrapolate the basic characteristics of fuel to the composition and temperature, and to develop an irradiation behavior analysis code to which the model is applied.
Kobayashi, Daisuke; Yamamoto, Masahiko; Nishida, Naoki; Miyoshi, Ryuta; Nemoto, Ryo*; Hayashi, Hiroyuki*; Kato, Keisuke; Nishino, Saki; Kuno, Takehiko; Kitao, Takahiko; et al.
Nihon Hozen Gakkai Dai-18-Kai Gakujutsu Koenkai Yoshishu, p.237 - 240, 2022/07
All gloves attached to glove-box in Tokai Reprocessing Plant have a fixed expiration date and have to be replaced every 4-year. However, degrees of glove deterioration are different depending on its usage environment (frequency, chemicals, radiation, etc.), because of rubber products. Therefore, physical properties such as tensile strength, elongation, hardness of gloves are measured, and the life-time of gloves are estimated. As a result, gloves without any defects in its appearance have enough physical property for acceptance criteria of new glove. The extrapolated physical property of glove is sufficiently larger than the reported values of damaged glove. No deterioration in physical properties of gloves, that are periodically replaced without any defects in its appearance, is observed and the usable life-time of the glove is estimated to be 8 years.
based on experimental data and density functional theory calculation resultWatanabe, Masashi; Nakamura, Hiroki; Suzuki, Kiichi; Machida, Masahiko; Kato, Masato
Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 105(3), p.2248 - 2257, 2022/03
Times Cited Count：2 Percentile：9.41(Materials Science, Ceramics)Properties of CeO
were evaluated by DFT simulation to determine band gap, Frenkel defect formation energy and defect migration energy. Band gap and Frenkel defect formation energy were used to analyze defect equilibria. Oxygen partial pressure dependence of defect equilibria was evaluated based on oxygen potential experimental data and DFT calculation, and a Brouwer diagram was derived. The defect formation energies, including Frenkel defect, electron-hole pair and so on, were determined and used to evaluate the properties, including oxygen diffusion coefficients, electrical conduction, heat capacity and thermal conductivity. Mechanisms of various properties were discussed for a deeper understanding based on defect chemistry, and the relationship among properties were systematically described.
Fukuda, Tatsuya*; Takahashi, Ryo*; Hara, Takuhi*; Ohara, Koji*; Kato, Kazuo*; Matsumura, Daiju; Inaba, Yusuke*; Nakase, Masahiko*; Takeshita, Kenji*
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(4), p.399 - 404, 2021/04
Times Cited Count：7 Percentile：55.56(Nuclear Science & Technology)Kitazato, Kohei*; Milliken, R. E.*; Iwata, Takahiro*; Abe, Masanao*; Otake, Makiko*; Matsuura, Shuji*; Takagi, Yasuhiko*; Nakamura, Tomoki*; Hiroi, Takahiro*; Matsuoka, Moe*; et al.
Nature Astronomy (Internet), 5(3), p.246 - 250, 2021/03
Times Cited Count：58 Percentile：96.23(Astronomy & Astrophysics)Here we report observations of Ryugu's subsurface material by the Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRS3) on the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Reflectance spectra of excavated material exhibit a hydroxyl (OH) absorption feature that is slightly stronger and peak-shifted compared with that observed for the surface, indicating that space weathering and/or radiative heating have caused subtle spectral changes in the uppermost surface. However, the strength and shape of the OH feature still suggests that the subsurface material experienced heating above 300 
C, similar to the surface. In contrast, thermophysical modeling indicates that radiative heating does not increase the temperature above 200 C at the estimated excavation depth of 1 m, even if the semimajor axis is reduced to 0.344 au. This supports the hypothesis that primary thermal alteration occurred due to radiogenic and/or impact heating on Ryugu's parent body.
Kudo, Hideyuki*; Otani, Yuichi*; Hara, Masahide*; Kato, Atsushi; Otaka, Masahiko; Ide, Akihiro*
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(4), p.408 - 420, 2020/04
Times Cited Count：1 Percentile：8.85(Nuclear Science & Technology)In a fuel handling system of sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs), it is necessary to remove the sodium remaining on spent fuel assemblies (FAs) before storing them in a spent fuel water pool (SFP) in order to minimize plant operating loads. A next-generation SFR in Japan has adopted an advanced dry cleaning process which consists of the following steps, argon gas blowing to remove the metallic residual sodium on the FA, moist argon gas blowing to deactivate the residual sodium, and direct storage in the SFP. This three-step process increases economic competitiveness and reduces waste products thanks to a waterless process. In this R&D work, performance of the dry cleaning process has been investigated.
Ide, Akihiro*; Kudo, Hideyuki*; Inuzuka, Taisuke*; Hara, Masahide*; Kato, Atsushi; Ishikawa, Nobuyuki; Otaka, Masahiko; Nagai, Keiichi; Saito, Junichi; Ara, Kuniaki
Proceedings of 2019 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2019) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2019/05
A next generation SFR in Japan has adopted an advanced dry cleaning system which consists of the following process of argon gas blowing to reduce the amount of metallic sodium, moist argon gas blowing to deactivate the residual sodium, and direct storage in the SFP without using storage containers. This three-step process increases economic competitiveness and reduces waste products. In this Research and Development work, the amount of residual sodium and performance of the dry cleaning process were investigated. This paper describes experimental and analytical work for all parts of a fuel assembly except for a fuel pin bundle.
Kudo, Hideyuki*; Otani, Yuichi*; Hara, Masahide*; Kato, Atsushi; Ishikawa, Nobuyuki; Otaka, Masahiko; Nagai, Keiichi; Saito, Junichi; Ara, Kuniaki; Ide, Akihiro*
Proceedings of 2019 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2019) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2019/05
A next generation SFR in Japan has adopted an advanced dry cleaning system which consists of the argon gas blowing process to reduce the amount of metallic residual sodium remaining on spent fuel assemblies. This paper describes experimental and analytical work focusing on the amount of residual sodium remaining on a fuel pin bundle before and after the argon gas blowing process. The experiments were conducted using a sodium test loop and a short specimen consisting of a 7 pin bundle. The effects of the blowing gas velocity and the blowing time were quantitatively analyzed in the experiments. On the basis of these experimental results, evaluation models predicting the amount of the residual sodium were constructed.
Kitazato, Kohei*; Milliken, R. E.*; Iwata, Takahiro*; Abe, Masanao*; Otake, Makiko*; Matsuura, Shuji*; Arai, Takehiko*; Nakauchi, Yusuke*; Nakamura, Tomoki*; Matsuoka, Moe*; et al.
Science, 364(6437), p.272 - 275, 2019/04
Times Cited Count：298 Percentile：99.68(Multidisciplinary Sciences)The near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu, the target of Hayabusa2 sample return mission, is believed to be a primitive carbonaceous object. The Near Infrared Spectrometer (NIRS3) on Hayabusa2 acquired reflectance spectra of Ryugu's surface to provide direct measurements of the surface composition and geological context for the returned samples. A weak, narrow absorption feature centered at 2.72 micron was detected across the entire observed surface, indicating that hydroxyl (OH)-bearing minerals are ubiquitous there. The intensity of the OH feature and low albedo are similar to thermally- and/or shock-metamorphosed carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. There are few variations in the OH-band position, consistent with Ryugu being a compositionally homogeneous rubble-pile object generated from impact fragments of an undifferentiated aqueously altered parent body.
Machida, Masahiko; Kato, Koichiro*; Shiga, Motoyuki
Journal of Chemical Physics, 148(10), p.102324_1 - 102324_11, 2018/03
Times Cited Count：22 Percentile：71.53(Chemistry, Physical)The isotopologs of liquid water, HO, DO, and TO, are studied systematically by first principles PIMD simulations, in which the whole entity of the electrons and nuclei are treated quantum mechanically. The simulation results are in reasonable agreement with available experimental data on isotope effects, in particular, on the peak shift in the radial distributions of HO and DO and the shift in the evaporation energies. It is found that, due to differences in nuclear quantum effects, the H atoms in the OH bonds more easily access the dissociative region up to the hydrogen bond center than the D (T) atoms in the OD (OT) bonds. The accuracy and limitation in the use of the current density-functional-theory-based first principles PIMD simulations are also discussed. It is argued that the inclusion of the dispersion correction or relevant improvements in the density functionals are required for the quantitative estimation of isotope effects.
Kato, Masato; Nakamura, Hiroki; Watanabe, Masashi; Matsumoto, Taku; Machida, Masahiko
Defect and Diffusion Forum, 375, p.57 - 70, 2017/05
The basic properties of PuO were reviewed, and the equilibrium defects in PuO were evaluated from the experimental data of the oxygen potential and electrical conductivity as well as the Ab-initio calculation results. Consistency among various properties was confirmed, and the mechanistic models for thermal property representations were derived.
Kato, Atsushi; Nagai, Keiichi; Ara, Kuniaki; Otaka, Masahiko; Oka, Nobuki*; Tanaka, Masako*; Otani, Yuichi*; Ide, Akihiro*
Proceedings of 2017 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2017) (CD-ROM), 8 Pages, 2017/04
In a fuel handling system (FHS) of a sodium-cooled fast reactor, it is necessary to reduce residual sodium on a spent fuel subassembly before storing at a spent fuel water-pool (SFP) in order to minimize design loads. Although the wet cleaning process adopted on MONJU could eliminate almost all of residual sodium, a large amount of radioactive liquid waste occurs and it needs long duration of cleaning treatment and large plant commodities. On the other hand, Japan sodium-cooled fast reactor adopted an advanced dry cleaning system which consists of roughly blowing massive sodium on the fuel subassembly out by 300C argon gas, inactivation of residual sodium to NaOH by moist argon gas and directly immersion into the SFP to achieve economic competitiveness and waste reduction. This paper reports current status of recent R&D activities to demonstrate a performance of the dry cleaning process in Japan which are for improvement of the cleaning performance and optimizing the FHS design.
V
Al alloysSoda, Kazuo*; Harada, Shota*; Hayashi, Toshimitsu*; Kato, Masahiko*; Ishikawa, Fumihiro*; Yamada, Yu*; Fujimori, Shinichi; Saito, Yuji
Materials Transactions, 57(7), p.1040 - 1044, 2016/06
Times Cited Count：2 Percentile：10.95(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)Nishikino, Masaharu; Hasegawa, Noboru; Ishino, Masahiko; Ochi, Yoshihiro; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Yamagiwa, Mitsuru; Kato, Yoshiaki*
Chinese Optics Letters, 13(7), p.070002_1 - 070002_3, 2015/07
Times Cited Count：1 Percentile：6.55(Optics)Nakamura, Hiroki; Machida, Masahiko; Kato, Masato
Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 84(5), p.053602_1 - 053602_5, 2015/05
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：26.65(Physics, Multidisciplinary)Plutonium dioxide (PuO
) is a key ingredient of mixed oxide (MOX) and advanced nuclear fuels. Its thermophysical data is crucial in understanding the high-temperature behaviors of nuclear fuels. In particular, the high-temperature heat capacity is of great importance for their safety and performance analyses. Here, we evaluate the main contributions to the heat capacity of PuO from 0 to 1400 K through suitable first-principles calculations. Consequently, we successfully obtain a temperature dependence in good agreement with experimental measurements. This success mainly results from accurate calculations of the Schottky heat capacity caused by the excited levels of 
-electrons of Pu. Our calculations resolve the mystery of why previous works failed to reproduce the measurement data. This study extends the possibility of performing simulation-based nuclear-fuel research instead of difficult measurements.
Chikazawa, Yoshitaka; Kato, Atsushi; Nabeshima, Kunihiko; Otaka, Masahiko; Uzawa, Masayuki*; Ikari, Risako*; Iwasaki, Mikinori*
Proceedings of 23rd International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-23) (DVD-ROM), 8 Pages, 2015/05
Design study and evaluation for SDC and safety SDG on the BOP of the demonstration JSFR including fuel handling system, power supply system, component cooling water system, building arrangement are reported. For the fuel handling system, enhancement of storage cooling system has been investigated adding diversified cooling systems. For the power supply, existing emergency power supply system has been reinforced and alternative emergency power supply system is added. For the component cooling system and air conditioning, requirements and relation between safety grade components are investigated. Additionally for the component cooling system, design impact when adding decay heat removal system by sea water has been investigated. For reactor building, over view of evaluation on the external events and design policy for distributed arrangement is reported. Those design study and evaluation provides background information of SDC and SDG.
Kitamura, Akihiro; Kurikami, Hiroshi; Yamaguchi, Masaaki; Oda, Yoshihiro; Saito, Tatsuo; Kato, Tomoko; Niizato, Tadafumi; Iijima, Kazuki; Sato, Haruo; Yui, Mikazu; et al.
Nuclear Science and Engineering, 179(1), p.104 - 118, 2015/01
Times Cited Count：8 Percentile：52.35(Nuclear Science & Technology)The prediction of the distribution and fate of radioactive materials eventually deposited at surface in the Fukushima area is one of the main objectives and expected to be achieved in an efficient manner. In order to make such prediction, a number of mathematical models of radioactive contaminants, with particular attention on cesium, on the land and in rivers, lakes, and estuaries in the Fukushima area are developed. Simulation results are examined with the field investigations simultaneously implemented. The basic studies of the adsorption/absorption mechanism of cesium and soils have been performed to shed light on estimating distribution coefficient between dissolved contaminant and particulate contaminant.
