Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory Project Investigation report for the 2024 fiscal year

Nakayama, Masashi; Ishii, Eiichi; Aoyagi, Kazuhei; Hayano, Akira; Murakami, Hiroaki; Ono, Hirokazu; Takeda, Masaki; Fukatsu, Yuta; Mochizuki, Akihito; Ozaki, Yusuke; et al.

JAEA-Review 2025-042, 136 Pages, 2025/12

JAEA-Review-2025-042.pdf:12.95MB

The Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory (URL) Project is being pursued by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to enhance the reliability of relevant technologies for geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste through investigating the deep geological environment within the host sedimentary rocks at Horonobe-cho in Hokkaido, north Japan. In the fiscal year 2024, we continued R&D on "Study on near-field system performance in geological environment", "Demonstration of repository design options", and "Understanding of buffering behaviour of sedimentary rock to natural perturbations". These are identified as key R&D on challenges to be tackled in the Horonobe underground research plan for the fiscal year 2020 onwards. Specifically, "full-scale engineered barrier system (EBS) performance experiment" and "solute transport experiment with model testing" were carried out as part of "Study on nearfield system performance in geological environment". "Demonstration of engineering feasibility of repository technology" and "evaluation of EBS behaviour over 100C" were addressed for "Demonstration of repository design options". The validation of a method for assessing permeability using the Ductility Index and a method for estimating the state of in-situ ground pressure from hydraulic perturbation tests were investigated as part of the study "Understanding of buffering behaviour of sedimentary rock to natural perturbations". In FY2024, we continued construction of the East Access Shaft and the Ventilation Shaft, and construction of these shafts were completed to a depth of 500 m. After the completion of the East Access Shaft, excavation of the West Access Shaft and 500 m gallery has began. As of the end of FY2024, excavation progress is as follows, the East Access Shaft and the Ventilation Shaft were 500 m depth, the West Access Shaft was 472 m depth, 500 m gallery was 112.9 m, respectively. In the Horonobe International Project (HIP), Management Board and Joint Task Meeting was held at the Horonobe URL in June 2024 to review the progress of construction of galleries and preparations of experiments. Task Meetings to review the implementation plan for in-situ testing and analysis were also held. HIP will be implemented in two phases: Phase 1 (from FY2022 to FY2024) and Phase 2 (from FY2025 to FY2028), the research results of Phase 1 were compiled in FY2024.

Attempt to estimate the creep characteristics of thick laminated rubber bearings installed in a vibration isolation building based on long-term observation results

Masaki, Nobuo*; Murota, Nobuo*; Kato, Koji*; Okamura, Shigeki; Yamamoto, Tomohiko; Uchita, Masato*; Fujita, Satoshi*

Nihon Kenchiku Gakkai Gijutsu Hokokushu, 31(78), p.687 - 692, 2025/06

https://doi.org/10.3130/aijt.31.687

Creep characteristic of the thick laminated rubber bearing made of natural rubber installed in the actual vibration isolation building for 55.2 years could be estimated by using existing measurement data and newly measurement data. Creep measurement data sets were examined by simple regression equation of recommended by JIS K6410-2. Regression analysis showed that the average creep displacement characteristics could be described by a power law. Average creep displacement of the thick laminated rubber bearings installed the building for 60 years was estimated 3.4 mm by the regression equation. The method of JIS K6410-2 is useful for forecasting creep displacement.

Theory of the inverse Rashba-Edelstein effect induced by thermal spin injection

Hosokawa, Kaiji*; Yama, Masaki*; Matsuo, Mamoru; Kato, Takeo*

Physical Review B, 110(3), p.035309_1 - 035309_12, 2024/07

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.110.035309

Effect of vertex corrections on the enhancement of Gilbert damping in spin pumping into a two-dimensional electron gas

Yama, Masaki*; Matsuo, Mamoru; Kato, Takeo*

Physical Review B, 107(17), p.174414_1 - 174414_15, 2023/05

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.174414

Development of evaluation method for core deformation reactivity in sodium-cooled fast reactor; Verification of core deformation reactivity evaluation based on first-order perturbation theory

Doda, Norihiro; Kato, Shinya; Iida, Masaki*; Yokoyama, Kenji; Tanaka, Masaaki

Proceedings of 12th Japan-Korea Symposium on Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics and Safety (NTHAS12) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2022/10

In the conventional core design in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs), negative reactivity feedback due to core deformation was neglected because of large uncertainty in analytical evaluation. To optimize core design, it is necessary to develop an analytical evaluation method and eliminate excessive conservativeness. An evaluation method for core deformation reactivity has been developed by coupling analysis of neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, and structural mechanics. For the verification study of the neutronics calculation method, the reactivity was calculated for the deformed core geometry in which the fuel assembly (FA) moved horizontally in the radial direction for each row from the core center. Compared to reference values derived from Monte Carlo calculations, the calculated reactivity due to FA displacement agreed well in the core region and was overestimated in the reflector region. The modification challenges in development of the core deformation model were identified.

Estimation of creep behavior of thick rubber bearings from 47 years observation in an actual building

Masaki, Nobuo*; Kato, Koji*; Yamamoto, Tomohiko; Miyagawa, Takayuki*; Fujita, Satoshi*; Okamura, Shigeki*

Nihon Kenchiku Gakkai Gijutsu Hokokushu, 28(68), p.81 - 84, 2022/02

https://doi.org/10.3130/aijt.28.81

no abstracts in English

Spin pumping of two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions

Yama, Masaki*; Tatsuno, Masahiro*; Kato, Takeo*; Matsuo, Mamoru

Physical Review B, 104(5), p.054410_1 - 054410_9, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.104.054410

Development of laser ablation absorption spectroscopy for nuclear fuel materials; Plume expansion behavior for refractory metals observed by laser-induced fluorescence imaging spectroscopy

Miyabe, Masabumi; Oba, Masaki; Akaoka, Katsuaki; Kato, Masaaki*; Hasegawa, Shuichi*; Wakaida, Ikuo

Applied Physics A, 126(3), p.213_1 - 213_10, 2020/03

AA2019-0700.pdf:2.82MB

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-020-3368-0

The dynamic behavior of an ablation plume in low pressure rare gas ambient was investigated with laser-induced fluorescence imaging spectroscopy for three refractory metals, i.e. titanium, zirconium and hafnium. A comparison of the plume expansion behaviors for the species of these elements revealed an atomic weight effect on the plume structure formation. A hemispherical thin layer and cavity structure reported previously for gadolinium were observed also for these elements. It was found that the plume size increases as well as the layer thickness decreases with increasing atomic weight. For ground state atoms of Ti, substantial amount of atoms were observed even at the center of the plume. Also, the persistence of the Ti atomic plume was as long as 300 s, which was significantly longer than the other species studied. Furthermore, the mass-dependent elemental separation was observed in the ablation plume produced from a multielement sample. These results suggest that the observed plume structure arises from the ion-electron recombination process and the recoil of the ablated species during the multiple collisions with gas atoms.

Laser ablation absorption spectroscopy for isotopic analysis of plutonium; Spectroscopic properties and analytical performance

Miyabe, Masabumi; Oba, Masaki; Jung, K.; Iimura, Hideki; Akaoka, Katsuaki; Kato, Masaaki; Otobe, Haruyoshi; Khumaeni, A.*; Wakaida, Ikuo

Spectrochimica Acta, Part B, 134, p.42 - 51, 2017/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sab.2017.05.008

Spectroscopic properties of atomic species of plutonium were investigated by combining laser ablation and resonance absorption techniques for the analysis of a plutonium oxide sample. For 17 transitions of Pu atoms and ions, the absorbance, isotope shift, and hyperfine splitting were determined via Voigt profile fitting of the recorded absorption spectra. Three transitions were selected as candidates for analytical use. Using these transitions, we investigated the analytical performance that was attainable and determined a correlation coefficient R2 between the absorbance and plutonium concentration of 0.9999, a limit of detection of 30-130 ppm, and a relative standard deviation of approximately 6% for an abundance of Pu of 2.4%. These results demonstrate that laser ablation absorption spectroscopy is applicable to the remote isotopic analysis of highly radioactive nuclear fuels and waste materials containing multiple actinide elements.

Ablation plume structure and dynamics in ambient gas observed by laser-induced fluorescence imaging spectroscopy

Miyabe, Masabumi; Oba, Masaki; Iimura, Hideki; Akaoka, Katsuaki; Khumaeni, A.*; Kato, Masaaki; Wakaida, Ikuo

Spectrochimica Acta, Part B, 110, p.101 - 117, 2015/08

AA2015-0183.pdf:3.11MB

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sab.2015.06.004

The dynamic behavior of an ablation plume in ambient gas has been investigated by laser-induced fluorescence imaging spectroscopy. The second harmonic beam from an Nd:YAG laser (0.5-6J/cm) was focused on a sintered oxide pellet or a metal chip of gadolinium. The produced plume was subsequently intersected with a sheet-shaped UV beam from a dye laser so that time-resolved fluorescence images were acquired with an intensified CCD camera at various delay times. The obtained cross-sectional images of the plume indicate that the ablated ground state atoms and ions of gadolinium accumulate in a hemispherical contact layer between the plume and the ambient gas, and a cavity containing a smaller density of ablated species is formed near the center of the plume. At earlier expansion stage, another luminous component also expands in the cavity so that it coalesces into the hemispherical layer. The splitting and coalescence for atomic plume occur later than those for ionic plume. Furthermore, the hemispherical layer of neutral atoms appears later than that of ions; however, the locations of the layers are nearly identical. This coincidence of the appearance locations of the layers strongly suggests that the neutral atoms in the hemispherical layer are produced as a consequence of three-body recombination of ions through collisions with gas atoms. The obtained knowledge regarding plume expansion dynamics and detailed plume structure is useful for optimizing the experimental conditions for ablation-based spectroscopic analysis.