A 3D particle-based analysis of molten pool-to-structural wall heat transfer in a simulated fuel subassembly

Zhang, T.*; Morita, Koji*; Liu, X.*; Liu, W.*; Kamiyama, Kenji

Extended abstracts of the 2nd Asian Conference on Thermal Sciences (Internet), 2 Pages, 2021/10

For the Japanese sodium cooled fast reactor, a fuel subassembly with an inner duct structure (FAIDUS) was designed to avoid the re-criticality by preventing the large-scale pool formation. In the present study, using the finite volume particle method, the EAGLE ID1 test which was an in-pile test performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of FAIDUS was numerically simulated and the thermal-hydraulic mechanisms underlying the heat transfer process were analyzed.

Pairing forces govern population of doubly magic Ca from direct reactions

Browne, F.*; Chen, S.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Utsuno, Yutaka; Yoshida, Kazuki; Achouri, N. L.*; Baba, Hidetada*; Calvet, D.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 126(25), p.252501_1 - 252501_7, 2021/06

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.252501

Direct proton-knockout reactions of Sc were studied at the RIKEN Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory. Populated states of Ca were investigated through -ray and invariant-mass spectroscopy. Level energies were calculated from the nuclear shell model employing a phenomenological inter-nucleon interaction. Theoretical cross sections to states were calculated from distorted-wave impulse approximation estimates multiplied by the shell model spectroscopic factors. Despite the calculations showing a significant amplitude of excited neutron configurations in the ground-state of Sc, valence proton removals populated predominantly the ground-state of Ca. This counter-intuitive result is attributed to pairing effects leading to a dominance of the ground-state spectroscopic factor. Owing to the ubiquity of the pairing interaction, this argument should be generally applicable to direct knockout reactions from odd-even to even-even nuclei.

Stacking fault driven phase transformation in CrCoNi medium entropy alloy

He, H.*; Naeem, M.*; Zhang, F.*; Zhao, Y.*; Harjo, S.; Kawasaki, Takuro; Wang, B.*; Wu, X.*; Lan, S.*; Wu, Z.*; et al.

Nano Letters, 21(3), p.1419 - 1426, 2021/02

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04244

General synthesis of single-atom catalysts for hydrogen evolution reactions and room-temperature Na-S batteries

Lai, W.-H.*; Wang, H.*; Zheng, L.*; Jiang, Q.*; Yan, Z.-C.*; Wang, L.*; Yoshikawa, Hirofumi*; Matsumura, Daiju; Sun, Q.*; Wang, Y.-X.*; et al.

Angewandte Chemie; International Edition, 59(49), p.22171 - 22178, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202009400

Status of study of long-term assessment of transport of radioactive contaminants in the environment of Fukushima (FY2018) (Translated document)

Nagao, Fumiya; Niizato, Tadafumi; Sasaki, Yoshito; Ito, Satomi; Watanabe, Takayoshi; Dohi, Terumi; Nakanishi, Takahiro; Sakuma, Kazuyuki; Hagiwara, Hiroki; Funaki, Hironori; et al.

JAEA-Research 2020-007, 249 Pages, 2020/10

JAEA-Research-2020-007.pdf:15.83MB

The accident of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. occurred due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, Sanriku offshore earthquake, of 9.0 magnitude and the accompanying tsunami. As a result, large amount of radioactive materials was released into the environment. Under these circumstances, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has been conducting "Long-term Assessment of Transport of Radioactive Contaminants in the Environment of Fukushima" concerning radioactive materials released in environment, especially migration behavior of radioactive cesium since November 2012. This report is a summary of the research results that have been obtained in environmental dynamics research conducted by JAEA in Fukushima Prefecture.

Study on eutectic melting behavior of control rod materials in core disruptive accidents of sodium-cooled fast reactors, 1; Project overview and progress until 2018

Yamano, Hidemasa; Takai, Toshihide; Furukawa, Tomohiro; Kikuchi, Shin; Emura, Yuki; Kamiyama, Kenji; Fukuyama, Hiroyuki*; Higashi, Hideo*; Nishi, Tsuyoshi*; Ota, Hiromichi*; et al.

Proceedings of 2020 International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE 2020) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2020/08

https://doi.org/10.1115/ICONE2020-16102

One of the key issues in a core disruptive accident (CDA) evaluation in sodium-cooled fast reactors is eutectic reactions between boron carbide (BC) and stainless steel (SS) as well as its relocation. Such behaviors have never been simulated in CDA numerical analyses in the past, therefore it is necessary to develop a physical model and incorporate the model into the CDA analysis code. This study focuses on BC-SS eutectic melting experiments, thermophysical property measurement of the eutectic melt, and physical model development for the eutectic melting reaction. The eutectic experiments involve the visualization experiments, eutectic reaction rate experiments and material analyses. The thermophysical properties are measured in a range from solid to liquid state. The physical model is developed for a severe accident computer code based on the measured data of the eutectic reaction rate and the physical properties. This paper describes the project overview and progress of experimental and analytical studies conducted until 2018. Specific results in this paper are boron concentration distributions of solidified BC-SS eutectic sample in the eutectic melting experiments, which would be used for the validation of the eutectic physical model implemented into the computer code.

Ultralow thermal conductivity from transverse acoustic phonon suppression in distorted crystalline -MgAgSb

Li, X.*; Liu, P.-F.*; Zhao, E.*; Zhang, Z.*; Guide, T.*; Le, M. D.*; Avdeev, M.*; Ikeda, Kazutaka*; Otomo, Toshiya*; Kofu, Maiko; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 11(1), p.942_1 - 942_9, 2020/02

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14772-5

In high-performance thermoelectric materials, there are two main low thermal conductivity mechanisms: the phonon anharmonic and phonon scattering resulting from the dynamic disorder, which have been successfully revealed by inelastic neutron scattering. Using neutron scattering and ab initio calculations, we report here a mechanism of static local structure distortion combined with phonon-anharmonic-induced ultralow lattice thermal conductivity in -MgAgSb. Since the transverse acoustic phonons are almost fully scattered by the intrinsic distorted rocksalt sublattice in this compound, the heat is mainly transported by the longitudinal acoustic phonons. The ultralow thermal conductivity in -MgAgSb is attributed to its atomic dynamics being altered by the structure distortion, which presents a possible microscopic route to enhance the performance of similar thermoelectric materials.

Shell evolution of = 40 isotones towards Ca; First spectroscopy of Ti

Corts, M. L.*; Rodriguez, W.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Holt, J. D.*; Lenzi, S. M.*; Menndez, J.*; Nowacki, F.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Poves, A.*; et al.

Physics Letters B, 800, p.135071_1 - 135071_7, 2020/01

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2019.135071

Excited states in the = 40 isotone Ti were populated via the V(,)Ti reaction at 200 MeV/nucleon at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory and studied using -ray spectroscopy. The energies of the and transitions, observed here for the first time, indicate a deformed Ti ground state. These energies are increased compared to the neighboring Cr and Fe isotones, suggesting a small decrease of quadrupole collectivity. The present measurement is well reproduced by large-scale shell-model calculations based on effective interactions, while ab initio and beyond mean-field calculations do not yet reproduce our findings.

Quasifree neutron knockout from Ca corroborates arising neutron magic number

Chen, S.*; Lee, J.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Barbieri, C.*; Chazono, Yoshiki*; Navrtil, P.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Otsuka, Takaharu*; Raimondi, F.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 123(14), p.142501_1 - 142501_7, 2019/10

AA2019-0306.pdf:0.57MB

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.142501

no abstracts in English

Study on eutectic melting behavior of control rod materials in core disruptive accidents of sodium-cooled fast reactors, 5; Validation of a multi-phase model for eutectic reaction between molten stainless steel and BC

Liu, X.*; Morita, Koji*; Yamano, Hidemasa

Proceedings of International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference / Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance Conference (Global/Top Fuel 2019) (USB Flash Drive), p.47 - 51, 2019/09

Investigation of the eutectic reaction in a core disruptive accident of sodium cooled reactor is of importance since reactor criticality will be affected by the change in reactivity after eutectic reaction. In this study, we performed 1st step of validation analysis using a fast reactor safety analysis code, SIMMER-III, with the developed model based on a new series of experiments, where a BC pellet was immersed into a molten stainless steel (SS) pool. The simulation results showed the general behavior of eutectic material formation measured in the experiments reasonably. The eutectic reaction consumes solid BC and liquid SS, and then the liquid eutectic composition is produced at the early stage of reaction due to the high temperature of molten SS. Movement of the eutectic material in the molten pool leads to the redistribution of boron element. Molten SS pool then freezes to solid SS and movement of eutectic material is stopped by surrounding solid SS. Boron concentration in the pool was measured after molten SS freezes into a solid. Simulation results indicate that boron tends to accumulate in the upper part of the molten pool. This is attributed to the buoyancy force acting on lighter boron in the molten SS pool. A parametric study was also conducted by changing the initial temperature of BC pellet and SS to investigate the temperature sensitivity on the eutectic reaction behavior.