Development of a non-destructive depth-selective quantification method for sub-percent carbon contents in steel using negative muon lifetime analysis

Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Kubo, Kenya*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Yoshida, Go*; Chiu, I.-H.; Kudo, Takuto*; Asari, Shunsuke*; Sentoku, Sawako*; Takeshita, Soshi*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; et al.

Scientific Reports (Internet), 14, p.1797_1 - 1797_8, 2024/01

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-52255-5

The amount of C in steel, which is critical in determining its properties, is strongly influenced by steel production technology. We propose a novel method of quantifying the bulk C content in steel non-destructively using muons. This revolutionary method may be used not only in the quality control of steel in production, but also in analyzing precious steel archaeological artifacts. A negatively charged muon forms an atomic system owing to its negative charge, and is finally absorbed into the nucleus or decays to an electron. The lifetimes of muons differ significantly, depending on whether they are trapped by Fe or C atoms, and identifying the elemental content at the muon stoppage position is possible via muon lifetime measurements. The relationship between the muon capture probabilities of C/Fe and the elemental content of C exhibits a good linearity, and the C content in the steel may be quantitatively determined via muon lifetime measurements. Furthermore, by controlling the incident energies of the muons, they may be stopped in each layer of a stacked sample consisting of three types of steel plates with thicknesses of 0.5 mm, and we successfully determined the C contents in the range 0.20 - 1.03 wt% depth-selectively, without sample destruction.

Development of nondestructive elemental analysis system for Hayabusa2 samples using muonic X-rays

Osawa, Takahito; Nagasawa, Shunsaku*; Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Takahashi, Tadayuki*; Nakamura, Tomoki*; Wada, Taiga*; Taniguchi, Akihiro*; Umegaki, Izumi*; Kubo, Kenya*; Terada, Kentaro*; et al.

ACS Earth and Space Chemistry (Internet), 7(4), p.699 - 711, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.2c00303

The concentrations of carbon and other major elements in asteroid samples provide very important information on the birth of life on the Earth and the solar-system evolution. Elemental analysis using muonic X-rays is one of the best analytical methods to determine the elemental composition of solid materials, and notably, is the only method to determine the concentration of light elements in bulk samples in a non-destructive manner. We developed a new analysis system using muonic X-rays to measure the concentrations of carbon and other major elements in precious and expectedly tiny samples recovered from the asteroid Ryugu by spacecraft Hayabusa2. Here we report the development process of the system in 4 stages and their system configurations, The analysis system is composed of a stainless-steel analysis chamber, an acrylic glove box for manipulating asteroid samples in a clean environment, and Ge semiconductor detectors arranged to surround the analysis chamber. The performance of the analysis system, including the background level, which is crucial for the measurement, was greatly improved from the first stage to the later ones. Our feasibility study showed that the latest model of our muonic X-ray analysis system is capable of determining the carbon concentration in Hayabusa2's sample model with an uncertainty of less than 10 percent in a 6-day measurement.

Initial quantum levels of captured muons in CO, CO, and COS

Yoshida, Go*; Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Higemoto, Wataru; Strasser, P.*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Miura, Taichi*; Kubo, Kenya*; et al.

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 320(2), p.283 - 289, 2019/05

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06470-4

The role of valence electrons for the muon capture process by molecules is experimentally investigated with the aid of cascade calculations. Low-momentum muons are introduced to gas targets below atmospheric pressure. The initial states of captured muons are determined from the measured muonic X-ray structure of the Lyman and Balmer series. We propose that the lone pair electrons in the carbon atom of CO significantly contribute to the capture of a muon with large angular momenta.

New precise measurements of muonium hyperfine structure at J-PARC MUSE

Strasser, P.*; Abe, Mitsushi*; Aoki, Masaharu*; Choi, S.*; Fukao, Yoshinori*; Higashi, Yoshitaka*; Higuchi, Takashi*; Iinuma, Hiromi*; Ikedo, Yutaka*; Ishida, Katsuhiko*; et al.

EPJ Web of Conferences, 198, p.00003_1 - 00003_8, 2019/01

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201919800003

New precise measurement of muonium hyperfine structure interval at J-PARC

Ueno, Yasuhiro*; Aoki, Masaharu*; Fukao, Yoshinori*; Higashi, Yoshitaka*; Higuchi, Takashi*; Iinuma, Hiromi*; Ikedo, Yutaka*; Ishida, Katsuhiko*; Ito, Takashi; Iwasaki, Masahiko*; et al.

Hyperfine Interactions, 238(1), p.14_1 - 14_6, 2017/11

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10751-016-1381-7

Online monitoring of negative muon beam profiles at J-PARC MUSE using a gated image intensifier

Ito, Takashi; Higemoto, Wataru; Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Kubo, Kenya*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Shimomura, Koichiro*

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 8, p.036014_1 - 036014_5, 2015/09

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.8.036014

The Development of a non-destructive analysis system with negative muon beam for industrial devices at J-PARC MUSE

Tampo, Motonobu*; Hamada, Koji*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Ito, Takashi; Kojima, Kenji*; Kubo, Kenya*; Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Strasser, P.*; Yoshida, Go*; et al.

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 8, p.036016_1 - 036016_6, 2015/09

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.8.036016

A New X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy for extraterrestrial materials using muon beam

Terada, Kentaro*; Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Osawa, Takahito; Tachibana, Shogo*; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Kubo, Kenya*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Higemoto, Wataru; Tsuchiyama, Akira*; Ebihara, Mitsuru*; et al.

Scientific Reports (Internet), 4, p.5072_1 - 5072_6, 2014/05

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep05072

After the discovery of X-ray by Rontgen, mankind got a new eye to see through things. This fluoroscopy, so-called X-ray radiography that gives the density distribution of the inside of an object, has been applied to the vast research field such as natural/material/medical sciences, industry and technology. The recent development on the intense pulsed muon source at J-PARC MUSE (rate of 106 cps for 60 MeV/c) enabled us to pioneer a new frontier of analytical sciences. Here we report on a non-destructive elemental analysis by using muon capture. Controlling muon's momentum from 32.5 to 57.5 MeV/c. we successfully demonstrated a depth-profile analysis of light elements from several mm-thick layered materials, and non-destructive bulk analyses of meteorites containing organics. Now it is a beginning to utilize a new eye, muon radiography.

Fast breeder reactor core concept for heterogeneous minor actinide loading

Oki, Shigeo; Naganuma, Masayuki; Okubo, Tsutomu; Tanaka, Kenya

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 50(1), p.59 - 71, 2013/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2013.750058

Study on reactivity effect of fission products for introducing burnup credit into the criticality safety evaluation of spent nuclear fuel

Okubo, Kiyoshi*; Suyama, Kenya; Uchiyama, Gunzo

Proceedings of International Conference on Toward and Over the Fukushima Daiichi Accident (GLOBAL 2011) (CD-ROM), 6 Pages, 2011/12

The amount of the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) stored at the nuclear reactor sites is increasing continuously in Japan. To correspond to such a situation, it is considered to take into account the decrease in the reactivity of SNF according to the burnup for the criticality safety control of SNF. This idea is called as burnup credit. If the negative reactivity effect of the fission product nuclides accumulated during the burnup is adopted into the burnup credit which considers only uranium and plutonium, the amount of fuel assembly that can be treated in the same facility is increased. This study reveals the reactivity effect of fission products has almost linear correlation with the increase of burnup SNF for both solution and heterogeneous systems. The negative reactivity effect of the selected fission product is equal to the increase of the burnup of approximately 20-25% for the solution system and 30-35% for the heterogeneous system respectively. It also implies that the estimation error of burnup value of 20% could be acceptable if we take the burnup credit adopting only uranium and plutonium isotopes, considering the fission products as the safety margin.