Inverse estimation scheme of radioactive source distributions inside building rooms based on monitoring air dose rates using LASSO; Theory and demonstration

Shi, W.*; Machida, Masahiko; Yamada, Susumu; Yoshida, Toru*; Hasegawa, Yukihiro*; Okamoto, Koji*

Progress in Nuclear Energy, 162, p.104792_1 - 104792_19, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2023.104792

Predicting radioactive source distributions inside reactor building rooms based on monitoring air dose rates is one of the most essential steps towards decommissioning of nuclear power plants. However, the attempt is rather a difficult task, because it can be generally mapped onto mathematically ill-posed problem. Then, in order to successfully perform the inverse estimations on radioactive source distributions even in such ill-posed conditions, we suggest that a machine learning method, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) minimizing the loss function, is a promising scheme. For the purpose of its feasibility demonstrations in real building rooms, we employ PHITS code to make LASSO input as the above matrix C connecting the radioactive source vector P defined on surface meshes of structural materials with the air dose rate vector Q measured at internal positions inside the rooms. We develop a mathematical criterion on the number of monitoring points to correctly predict source distributions based on the theory of Candes and Tao. Then, we confirm that LASSO actually shows extremely high possibility for source distribution reconstructions as far as the number of detection points satisfies our criterion. Moreover, we verify that radioactive hot spots can be truly reconstructed in an experiment setup. At last, we examine an influence factor like detector-source distance to enhance the predicting possibility in the inverse estimation. From the above demonstrations, we propose that LASSO scheme is a quite useful way to explore hot spots as seen in damaged nuclear power plants like Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants.

LASSO reconstruction scheme to predict radioactive source distributions inside reactor building rooms; Theory & demonstration

Shi, W.*; Machida, Masahiko; Yamada, Susumu; Yoshida, Toru*; Hasegawa, Yukihiro*; Okamoto, Koji*

Proceedings of Waste Management Symposia 2023 (WM2023) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2023/02

High-temperature gaseous reaction of cesium with siliceous thermal insulation; The Potential implication to the provenance of enigmatic Fukushima cesium-bearing material

Rizaal, M.; Nakajima, Kunihisa; Saito, Takumi*; Osaka, Masahiko; Okamoto, Koji*

ACS Omega (Internet), 7(33), p.29326 - 29336, 2022/08

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.2c03525

Investigation of high-temperature chemical interaction of calcium silicate insulation and cesium hydroxide

Rizaal, M.; Nakajima, Kunihisa; Saito, Takumi*; Osaka, Masahiko; Okamoto, Koji*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(9), p.1062 - 1073, 2020/09

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1755733

The interaction of cesium hydroxide and a calcium silicate insulation material was experimentally investigated at high temperature conditions. A thermogravimetry equipped with differential thermal analysis was used to analyze thermal events in the samples of mixed calcium silicate and cesium hydroxide under Ar-5%H and Ar-4%H-20%H0 with maximum temperature of 1100C. Prior being mixed with cesium hydroxide, a part of calcium silicate was pretreated at high temperature to evaluate the effect of possible structural changes of this material due to a preceding thermal history and also the sake of thermodynamic evaluation to those available ones. Based upon the initial condition (preliminary heat treatment) of calcium silicate, it was found that if the original material consisted of xonotlite (CaSi0(0H)), the endothermic reaction with cesium hydroxide occurred over the temperature range 575-730C meanwhile if the crystal phase of original material was changed to wollastonite (CaSi0), the interaction occurred over temperature range 700-1100C. Furthermore, the X-ray diffraction analyses have indicated on both type of pretreated calsils that regardless of Ar-5%H and Ar-4%H-20%H0 atmosphere, cesium aluminum silicate, CsAlSi0 was formed with aluminum in the samples as an impurity or adduct.

Structural investigation of thorium in molten lithium-calcium fluoride mixtures for salt treatment process in molten salt reactor

Numakura, Masahiko*; Sato, Nobuaki*; Bessada, C.*; Okamoto, Yoshihiro; Akatsuka, Hiroshi*; Nezu, Atsushi*; Shimohara, Yasuaki*; Tajima, Keisuke*; Kawano, Hirokazu*; Nakahagi, Takeshi*; et al.

Progress in Nuclear Energy, 53(7), p.994 - 998, 2011/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2011.04.026

X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) measurements on thorium fluoride in molten lithium-calcium fluoride mixtures and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of zirconium and yttrium fluoride in molten lithium-calcium fluoride mixtures have been carried out. In the molten state, coordination number of thorium and inter ionic distances between thorium and fluorine in the first neighbor are nearly constant in all mixtures. However the fluctuation factors (Debye-Waller factor and C cumulant) increase until CaF = 0.17 and decrease by addition of excess CaF. It means that the local structure around Th is disordered until CaF=0.17 and stabilized over CaF = 0.17. The variation of fluctuation factors is related to the number density of F in ThF mixtures and the stability of local structure around Th increases with decreasing the number density of F in ThF mixtures. This tendency is common to those in the ZrF and YF mixtures.

XAFS studies on actinide-pyridine-diamide complexes for development of an innovative separation process

Shiwaku, Hideaki; Yaita, Tsuyoshi; Kobayashi, Toru; Numakura, Masahiko; Suzuki, Shinichi; Okamoto, Yoshihiro

Proceedings of 4th Workshop on Speciation, Techniques, and Facilities for Radioactive Materials at Synchrotron Light Sources (Actinide-XAS-2006), p.301 - 306, 2007/05

no abstracts in English

Attempt at visualization and quantification of cisplatin in human lung cancer cell using in-air micro-PIXE

Sakurai, Hideyuki*; Okamoto, Masahiko*; Shin, Masako*; Takeuchi, Aiko*; Hasegawa, Masatoshi*; Sato, Takahiro; Oikawa, Masakazu*; Kamiya, Tomihiro; Arakawa, Kazuo; Nakano, Takashi*

no journal, , 

no abstracts in English

Influence of substituent effect phenanthroline on the structure of lanthanides complexes

Numakura, Masahiko; Yaita, Tsuyoshi; Shiwaku, Hideaki; Kobayashi, Toru; Okamoto, Yoshihiro; Suzuki, Shinichi; Ikeda, Atsushi*

no journal, , 

Influences of thee different phenanthorolines (Phens) with which substituent differs, i.e., Phen, Methyl-Phen:MPhen, and Nitro-Phen:NPhen, on their structure and electronic structure formation were studied by EXAFS and XPS methods. The radial structural functions of EXAFS suggested that Lu ion forms 1:3, 1:2, and 1:1 complexes in metal to Phen ratios with Phen, MPhen, and NPhen, respectively. Moreover, the process of which Phen nitrogen with a small backscattering factor exchanges with chloride ion with a large one was clearly observed in the radial structural function of EXAFS. XPS spectra did not show any difference in both the valence level and inner-shell structures among the spectra for three Phens, while clear differences on the spectra of valence level between light lanthanide and heavy lanthanide complexes were observed.

High-energy XAFS study of molten terbium trichloride mixtures

Numakura, Masahiko; Okamoto, Yoshihiro; Yaita, Tsuyoshi; Shiwaku, Hideaki; Suzuki, Shinichi; Kobayashi, Toru; Akutsu, Kazuhiro; Matsuura, Haruaki*

no journal, , 

The high energy XAFS using K-absorption edge is very effective to obtain information on behavior of small amount of rare earth elements in molten chlorides. In the present study, we performed the XAFS measurement to obtain the local structure change for molten TbCl and the mixture of 40% TbCl with LiCl-KCl eutectic, 15% TbCl with LiCl-KCl eutectic and 1.5% TbCl with LiCl-KCl eutectic. We found that as the concentration of TbCl is lower, the coordination number decrease a little and become near 6 but the nearest Tb-Cl distance is almost same. In addition, we found that Debye-Waller factor become very small. We also performed molecular dynamics simulation to obtain the information of structure change. This simulation showed the intense structure change occurs at vicinity of 25% TbCl with LiCl-KCl eutectic. Its simulation result accorded with this XAFS experiment result.

Separation of lanthanide ion by aromatic nitrogen ligands and fluorescent property of the extracted complex

Shiwaku, Hideaki; Akutsu, Kazuhiro; Yaita, Tsuyoshi; Okamoto, Yoshihiro; Kobayashi, Toru; Numakura, Masahiko; Nakano, Yoshiharu*; Mahara, Saori*; Fujii, Yuki*

no journal, , 

no abstracts in English