New market opened up by advanced nuclear reactors (Chapter 3, 4, 5, 7)

Kamide, Hideki; Kawasaki, Nobuchika; Hayafune, Hiroki; Kubo, Shigenobu; Chikazawa, Yoshitaka; Maeda, Seiichiro; Sagayama, Yutaka; Nishihara, Tetsuo; Sumita, Junya; Shibata, Taiju; et al.

Jisedai Genshiro Ga Hiraku Atarashii Shijo; NSA/Commentaries, No.28, p.14 - 36, 2023/10

Developments of next generation nuclear reactors, e.g., Fast Reactor, and High Temperature Gas cooled Reactor, are in progress. They can contribute to markets of electricity and industrial heat utilization in the world including Japan. Here, current status of reactor developments in Japan and also situation in the world are summarized, especially for activities of Generation IV International Forum (GIF), developments of Fast Reactor and High Temperature Gas cooled Reactor in Japan, and SMR movements in the world.

Hyperfine splitting and nuclear spin polarization in NdPdAl and NdPdGe

Metoki, Naoto; Shibata, Kaoru; Matsuura, Masato*; Kitazawa, Hideaki*; Suzuki, Hiroyuki*; Yamauchi, Hiroki; Hagihara, Masato; Frontzek, M. D.*; Matsuda, Masaaki*

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 91(5), p.054710_1 - 054710_6, 2022/05

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.91.054710

Hyperfine splitting of Nd nuclei in NdPdAl has been studied by means of high-resolution neutron spectroscopy. We observed inelastic peaks at eV coming from the hyperfine splitting in the magnetically ordered phase due to the hyperfine interactions between Nd nuclei (=7/2) and the 4 electrons with ground state composed of mainly . At very low temperatures, nuclear spin of Nd is polarized with increasing occupation probability of low energy levels and contributes to the enhancement of the antiferromagnetic Bragg intensities: the elastic non-spin-flip channel is dominant. As an application of this phenomenon, we determined the Nd moment and hyperfine splitting from the temperature dependence of an antiferromagnetic Bragg intensities for NdPdGe.

Fabrication, permeation, and corrosion stability measurements of silica membranes for HI decomposition in the thermochemical iodine-sulfur process

Myagmarjav, O.; Shibata, Ai*; Tanaka, Nobuyuki; Noguchi, Hiroki; Kubo, Shinji; Nomura, Mikihiro*; Takegami, Hiroaki

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 46(56), p.28435 - 28449, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.06.079

High temperature gas-cooled reactors

Takeda, Tetsuaki*; Inagaki, Yoshiyuki; Aihara, Jun; Aoki, Takeshi; Fujiwara, Yusuke; Fukaya, Yuji; Goto, Minoru; Ho, H. Q.; Iigaki, Kazuhiko; Imai, Yoshiyuki; et al.

High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors; JSME Series in Thermal and Nuclear Power Generation, Vol.5, 464 Pages, 2021/02

https://doi.org/10.1016/C2018-0-05383-9

As a general overview of the research and development of a High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) in JAEA, this book describes the achievements by the High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) on the designs, key component technologies such as fuel, reactor internals, high temperature components, etc., and operational experience such as rise-to-power tests, high temperature operation at 950C, safety demonstration tests, etc. In addition, based on the knowledge of the HTTR, the development of designs and component technologies such as high performance fuel, helium gas turbine and hydrogen production by IS process for commercial HTGRs are described. These results are very useful for the future development of HTGRs. This book is published as one of a series of technical books on fossil fuel and nuclear energy systems by the Power Energy Systems Division of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.

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

Neutron scattering study of yttrium iron garnet

Shamoto, Shinichi; Ito, Takashi; Onishi, Hiroaki; Yamauchi, Hiroki; Inamura, Yasuhiro; Matsuura, Masato*; Akatsu, Mitsuhiro*; Kodama, Katsuaki; Nakao, Akiko*; Moyoshi, Taketo*; et al.

Physical Review B, 97(5), p.054429_1 - 054429_9, 2018/02

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.054429

Nuclear and magnetic structure and full magnon dispersions of yttrium iron garnet YFeO have been studied by neutron scattering. The lowest-energy dispersion below 14 meV exhibits a quadratic dispersion as expected from ferromagnetic magnons. The imaginary part of -integrated dynamical spin susceptibility "() exhibits a square-root energy-dependence in the low energies. The magnon density of state is estimated from the "() obtained on an absolute scale. The value is consistent with a single chirality mode for the magnon branch expected theoretically.

Research and development on pyrochemical treatment of spent nitride fuels for MA transmutation in JAEA

Hayashi, Hirokazu; Sato, Takumi; Shibata, Hiroki; Tsubata, Yasuhiro

NEA/NSC/R(2017)3, p.427 - 432, 2017/11

Transmutation of long-lived radioactive nuclides including minor actinides (MA: Np, Am, Cm) has been studied in Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). Pb-Bi cooled sub-critical accelerator-driven system (ADS) is regarded as one of the powerful tools for transmutation of MA under the double strata fuel cycle concept. Uranium-free MA-Pu nitride fuel was chosen as the first candidate for MA transmutation. Reprocessing of spent ADS fuel and reusing MA recovered from the spent ADS fuels is necessary to improve the transmutation ratio. A pyrochemical process has been proposed as the first candidate for reprocessing of the spent nitride fuel for MA transmutation, because this technique has some advantages over aqueous process, such as the resistance to radiation damage, which is an important issue for the fuels containing large amounts of highly radioactive MA, and feasibility for recovering expensive N-15 in the spent fuels to be reused. This paper overviews the current status of the technology development, including our recent study. Development of the anode suitable for electro-refining of nitride fuels and that of the apparatus for renitridation of the metals recovered in Cd cathode for 100g-Cd scale cold tests are main topics. Evaluation of the batch sizes of each process, which is necessary for estimating the scale of the engineering-apparatus, with considering the decay heat of MA and FP, will also be introduced.

Control blade degradation test under temperature gradient in steam atmosphere

Shibata, Hiroki; Tokushima, Kazuyuki; Sakamoto, Kan*; Kurata, Masaki

Proceedings of Annual Topical Meeting on LWR Fuels with Enhanced Safety and Performance (TopFuel 2016) (USB Flash Drive), p.1033 - 1042, 2016/09

To understand the degradation process of control blade channel, control blade degradation tests using sim-materials were performed under various atmospheres with the temperature increase and temperature gradient conditions. In the steam atmosphere with a flow rate of 0.0125 g/s/rod, control blade, channel box, and fuel rods were degraded, especially at the upper part of the test piece, which was similar to that observed in argon atmosphere test. However, the observed degradation was rather different at a flow rate of 0.0417 g/s/rod. At the upper part of the test piece, only the control blade was degraded preferentially and did not react with channel box wall. In contrast, the eutectic reaction of S.S./BC-melt and Zry occurred at the lower part. These observations suggested the existence of a threshold condition for the control rod degradation between 0.0125 and 0.0417 g/s/rod which is significantly affected by the thickness of the oxide layer on Zry.

First observation of rays emitted from excited states south-east of Sn; The g multiplet of In

Jungclaus, A.*; Gargano, A.*; Grawe, H.*; Taprogge, J.*; Nishimura, Shunji*; Doornenbal, P.*; Lorusso, G.*; Shimizu, Y.*; Simpson, G. S.*; Sderstrm, P.-A.*; et al.

Physical Review C, 93(4), p.041301_1 - 041301_6, 2016/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.93.041301

Chemical interaction between granular BC and 304L-type stainless steel materials used in BWRs in Japan

Shibata, Hiroki; Sakamoto, Kan*; Ouchi, Atsushi*; Kurata, Masaki

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 52(10), p.1313 - 1317, 2015/10

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2015.1011721

Chemical interactions between S.S. and BC may lead to the melting of control rods and subsequent relocation of control rod materials in the early stage of severe accident. The liquid products interact with the surroundings such as control rod blades, Zircaloy channel boxes and fuel rods, which may accelerate the fuel bundle degradation. Previous studies on the chemical interactions between S.S. and BC have been performed using the BC powders or pellets. However, almost all of control rods of BWR in Japan consist of granular BC filled in S.S. tubes. In the present study, the chemical reaction tests were carried out using the materials adopted in BWR in Japan, namely granular BC and 304L type S.S. and it was concluded that the kinetics of chemical interaction between S.S. and granular BC is clearly different from that between S.S. and pellet or powder BC.