Introduction to dismantling and decommissioning chemistry

Sato, Nobuaki*; Kameo, Yutaka; Sato, Soichi; Kumagai, Yuta; Sato, Tomonori; Yamamoto, Masahiro*; Watanabe, Yutaka*; Nagai, Takayuki; Niibori, Yuichi*; Watanabe, Masayuki; et al.

Introduction to Dismantling and Decommissioning Chemistry, 251 Pages, 2024/09

This book focuses on the dismantling and decommissioning of nuclear facilities and reactors that have suffered severe accidents. In Part 1, we introduce basic aspects ranging from fuel chemistry, analytical chemistry, radiation chemistry, corrosion, and decontamination chemistry to waste treatment and disposal. Then, Part 2 covers the chemistry involved in the decommissioning of various nuclear facilities, and discusses what chemical approaches are necessary and possible for the decommissioning of TEPCO's Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plants, how decommissioning should be carried out, and what kind of research and development and also human resource development are required for this.

Production rates of long-lived radionuclides Be and Al under direct muon-induced spallation in granite quartz and its implications for past high-energy cosmic ray fluxes

Sakurai, Hirohisa*; Kurebayashi, Yutaka*; Suzuki, Soichiro*; Horiuchi, Kazuho*; Takahashi, Yui*; Doshita, Norihiro*; Kikuchi, Satoshi*; Tokanai, Fuyuki*; Iwata, Naoyoshi*; Tajima, Yasushi*; et al.

Physical Review D, 109(10), p.102005_1 - 102005_18, 2024/05

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.102005

Secular variations of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) are inseparably associated with the galactic activities and should reflect the environments of the local galactic magnetic field, interstellar clouds, and nearby supernova remnants. The high-energy muons produced in the atmosphere by high-energy GCRs can penetrate deep underground and generate radioisotopes in the rock. As long lived radionuclides such as Be and Al have been accumulating in these rocks, concentrations of Be and Al can be used to estimate the long-term variations in high-energy muon yields, corresponding to those in the high-energy GCRs over a few million years. This study measured the production cross sections for muon induced Be and Al by irradiating positive muons with the momentum of 160 GeV/c on the synthetic silica plates and the granite core at the COMPASS experiment line in CERN SPS. In addition, it the contributions of the direct muon spallation reaction and the nuclear reactions by muon-induced particles on the production of long lived radionuclides in the rocks were clarified.

Effects of the low-oxygen gas-phase radiolysis on the corrosive environment in the liquid phase

Hata, Kuniki; Kimura, Atsushi*; Taguchi, Mitsumasa*; Sato, Tomonori; Kato, Chiaki; Watanabe, Yutaka*

Zairyo To Kankyo, 72(4), p.126 - 130, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.3323/jcorr.72.126

Gamma-radiolysis experiments with gas-liquid coexistent samples were carried out to investigate effects of gas-phase radiolysis on corrosive environment for materials in solutions under irradiation. After gamma-ray irradiation, hydrogen peroxide, nitrate ion, nitrite ion were detected in the liquid phase. The production yields of nitrate ion and nitrite ion increased with increasing gas-phase volume and oxygen concentration. This result indicated that chemical reactions including oxygen and nitrogen in the gas phase were required for the production of nitrate ion and nitrite ion. To magnify the effects of gas-phase radiolysis in the gas-liquid coexistent samples, absorption dose rate in the liquid phase was reduced by one-hundredth using lead shield. The concentration of hydrogen peroxide and the pH in the shielded liquid phase were similar to those in the irradiated pure water, which did not contact with gas phase. This result indicated that the effects of nitrate ion and nitrite ion dissolved in the liquid phase on water radiolysis were not important in the current experimental system, in which the effects of gas-phase radiolysis were increased by 100-times.

Synthesis report on the R&D for the Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory; Project carried out during fiscal years 2015-2019

Nakayama, Masashi; Saiga, Atsushi; Kimura, Shun; Mochizuki, Akihito; Aoyagi, Kazuhei; Ono, Hirokazu; Miyakawa, Kazuya; Takeda, Masaki; Hayano, Akira; Matsuoka, Toshiyuki; et al.

JAEA-Research 2019-013, 276 Pages, 2020/03

JAEA-Research-2019-013.pdf:18.72MB

The Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory (URL) Project is being pursued by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to enhance the reliability of relevant disposal technologies for geological disposal of High-level Radioactive Waste through investigations of the deep geological environment within the host sedimentary rock at Horonobe Town in Hokkaido, north Japan. The investigations will be conducted in three phases, namely "Phase 1: Surface based investigations", "Phase 2: Construction phase" (investigations during construction of the underground facilities) and "Phase 3: Operation phase" (research in the underground facilities). According to the research plan described in the 3rd Mid- and Long- term Plan of JAEA, "Near-field performance study", "Demonstration of repository design option", and "Verification of crustal-movement buffering capacity of sedimentary rocks" are important issues of the Horonobe URL Project, and schedule of future research and backfill plans of the project will be decided by the end of 2019 Fiscal Year. The present report summarizes the research and development activities of these 3 important issues carried out during 3rd Medium to Long-term Research Phase.

Measurement of the angular distribution of -rays after neutron capture by La for a T-violation search

Okudaira, Takuya; Shimizu, Hirohiko*; Kitaguchi, Masaaki*; Hirota, Katsuya*; Haddock, C. C.*; Ito, Ikuya*; Yamamoto, Tomoki*; Endo, Shunsuke*; Ishizaki, Kohei*; Sato, Takumi*; et al.

EPJ Web of Conferences, 219, p.09001_1 - 09001_6, 2019/12

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201921909001

Parity violating effects enhanced by up to 10 times have been observed in several neutron induced compound nuclei. There is a theoretical prediction that time reversal (T) violating effects can also be enhanced in these nuclei implying that T-violation can be searched for by making very sensitive measurements. However, the enhancement factor has not yet been measured in all nuclei. The angular distribution of the (n,) reaction was measured with La by using a germanium detector assembly at J-PARC, and the enhancement factor was obtained. From the result, the measurement time to achieve the most sensitive T-violation search was estimated as 1.4 days, and a 40% polarized La target and a 70% polarized He spin filter whose thickness is 70 atmcm are needed. Therefore high quality He spin filter is developed in JAEA. The measurement result of the (n,) reaction at J-PARC and the development status of the He spin filter will be presented.

Nuclear moments of the low-lying isomeric state of Al; Investigation on the neutron excitation across in the island of inversion

Xu, Z. Y.*; Heylen, H.*; Asahi, Koichiro*; Boulay, F.*; Daugas, J. M.*; de Groote, R. P.*; Gins, W.*; Kamalou, O.*; Koszors, .*; Lykiardopoupou, M.*; et al.

Physics Letters B, 782, p.619 - 626, 2018/07

AA2018-0159.pdf:0.5MB

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2018.06.009

no abstracts in English

Safety evaluation of accident tolerant fuel with SiC/SiC cladding

Sato, Hisaki*; Takeuchi, Yutaka*; Kakiuchi, Kazuo*; Yamashita, Shinichiro; Nagase, Fumihisa

Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 9 Pages, 2017/09

http://www.wrfpm2017.org/upload/draft_file/F-238-PD3.pdf

Since JFY2015, new Japanese national program has been initiated for the purpose of establishing the technical basis to apply ATF for the existing LWRs. SiC is one of ATF candidates material and the comprehensive applicability is being studied in the program, such as fuel rod design, core and plant design, safety evaluation for design basis accident (DBA) and severe accident (SA) as well. As one of the works in the program, the new procedure including fuel rod performance analysis during DBA was developed and the preliminary analysis was conducted. As a result, it was concluded that the typical transient and LOCA behavior between Zircaloy and SiC was not so much different.

Radiochemical analysis of rubble collected from around and inside reactor buildings at Units 1 to 4 in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station

Sato, Yoshiyuki; Aono, Ryuji; Konda, Miki; Tanaka, Kiwamu; Ueno, Takashi; Ishimori, Kenichiro; Kameo, Yutaka

Proceedings of 54th Annual Meeting of Hot Laboratories and Remote Handling (HOTLAB 2017) (Internet), 13 Pages, 2017/00

http://hotlab.sckcen.be/proceedings

no abstracts in English

Long-term immersion experiments of low alkaline cementitious materials

Seno, Yasuhiro*; Noguchi, Akira*; Nakayama, Masashi; Sugita, Yutaka; Suto, Shunkichi; Tanai, Kenji; Fujita, Tomoo; Sato, Haruo*

JAEA-Technology 2016-011, 20 Pages, 2016/07

JAEA-Technology-2016-011.pdf:7.56MB

Cementitious materials are expected to be used for the construction of an underground repository for the geological disposal of radioactive wastes. Ordinary Portland Cement(OPC) would conventionally be used in the fields of civil engineering and architecture, however, OPC has the potential to generate a highly alkaline plume (pH12.5), which will likely degrade the performance of other barriers in the repository such as the bentonite buffer and/or host rock. Low alkaline cementitious materials are therefore being developed that will mitigate the generation of a highly alkaline plume. JAEA has developed a High-volume Fly ash Silica fume Cement (HFSC) as a candidate low alkaline cementitious material. The workability of the HFSC shotcrete was confirmed by conducting In-situ full scale construction tests in the Horonobe underground research laboratory. This report summarizes the results of immersion tests to assess the long-term pH behavior of hardened HFSC cement pastes made with mix designs that are expected to be able to be used in the construction of an underground repository in Japan.

Method of dynamic image measurement for analyzing cricket behavior

Takahashi, Satoru*; Okuda, Yasutake*; Kawabata, Kuniaki; Aonuma, Hitoshi*; Sato, Yutaka*; Iwata, Kenji*

Journal of Signal Processing, 20(2), p.65 - 74, 2016/03

http://doi.org/10.2299/jsp.20.65