Nuclear hydrogen demonstration project using the HTTR; Demarcation of nuclear-industrial laws and design standards

Aoki, Takeshi; Shimizu, Atsushi; Ishii, Katsunori; Morita, Keisuke; Mizuta, Naoki; Kurahayashi, Kaoru; Yasuda, Takanori; Noguchi, Hiroki; Nomoto, Yasunobu; Iigaki, Kazuhiko; et al.

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 220, p.111503_1 - 111503_7, 2025/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2025.111503

Aiming to establish coupling technologies between a high temperature gas cooled reactor and a hydrogen production plant, JAEA has initiated the HTTR Heat Application Test Project and is conducting the safety design and the safety analysis for the licensing of the HTTR Heat Application Test Facility. The present study proposed a relative evaluation methodology for the demarcation of applicable laws and design standards for the nuclear hydrogen production system and applied it to the HTTR Heat Application Test Facility. The evaluation results showed that a candidate applying the High Pressure Gas Safety Act to the Heat Application Test Facility (hydrogen production plant) and design standards established under the High Pressure Gas Safety Act to the steam reformer did not show the lowest category in any of the metrics, and was proposed as the most superior demarcation option for the HTTR Heat Application Test Facility.

Validating terrestrial SER in 12-, 28-, and 65-nm SRAMs estimated by simulation coupled with one-time neutron irradiation

Takami, Kazusa*; Gomi, Yuibi*; Yasuda, Ryuichi*; Abe, Shinichiro; Ito, Masatoshi*; Kanda, Hiroki*; Fukuda, Mitsuhiro*; Hashimoto, Masanori*

IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 72(8), p.2622 - 2628, 2025/08

https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2025.3534564

Neutron-induced soft errors in the terrestrial environment pose reliability issues for semiconductor devices. We have developed the new method for estimating terrestrial SER based on simulation coupled with one-time irradiation using a conventional neutron source. This method has been validated using 65-nm planar SRAMs. However, with the ongoing progression of process shrinkage and the increasing adoption of devices fabricated with newer processes, there is a growing demand for further experimental validation of the terrestrial SER estimation method for these advanced processes. In this work, we validated the estimation method for 12-nm 1-fin FinFETs and 28-nm planer SRAMs. The SERs estimated by our method were consistent with the SERs measured using a white neutron beam at RCNP within 28% error.

Neutron spectroscopy study on crystalline electric field excitations in NdB

Yamauchi, Hiroki; Metoki, Naoto; Watanuki, Ryuta*; Hong, T.*; Fernandez-Baca, J. A.*; Hagihara, Masato; Masuda, Takatsugu*; Yoshizawa, Hideki*; Ito, Shinichi*

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 94(5), p.054705_1 - 054705_8, 2025/04

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.94.054705

Measurements of displacement cross sections of metals for 120-GeV proton beam irradiation

Iwamoto, Yosuke; Matsuda, Hiroki*; Meigo, Shinichiro; Yonehara, Katsuya*; Pellemoine, F.*; Liu, Z.*; Lynch, K.*; Yoshida, Makoto*; Yabuuchi, Atsushi*; Yoshiie, Toshimasa*; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 557, p.165543_1 - 165543_8, 2024/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2024.165543

The number of displacements per atom is widely used as an indicator of irradiation damage to materials in proton accelerator facilities. Experiments have been carried out on protons below 3 GeV to verify the dpa of metallic materials. However, the dpa for high-energy protons above 3 GeV has not been measured. In order to validate the displacement cross sections of metals in the high-energy region, the electrical resistivity changes of aluminium, copper and tungsten wires at a temperature of 8 K were measured using protons with energy of 120 GeV. The results show that the conventional irradiation damage model of PHITS overestimates the experimental data. On the other hand, the calculation results using the athermal recombination correction model were in agreement with the experimental data.

Corrigendum to "Visualization of the working fluid in a flat-plate pulsating heat pipe by neutron radiography" [International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 185 (2022) 122336]

Yasuda, Yosuke*; Matsumoto, Yoshihiro*; Shinohara, Takenao; Nabeshima, Fumika*; Horiuchi, Keisuke*; Nagai, Hiroki*

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 213, p.124291_1 - 124291_2, 2023/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2023.124291

Measurement of displacement cross-sections of Nb irradiated by protons with kinetic energy range between 0.4 and 3 GeV

Meigo, Shinichiro; Nakano, Keita*; Matsuda, Hiroki; Iwamoto, Yosuke; Yoshida, Makoto*

EPJ Web of Conferences, 284, p.05001_1 - 05001_4, 2023/05

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202328405001

In high-intensity proton accelerator facilities such as Accelerator Driven System (ADS) and the spallation neutron source, it is crucial to evaluate the damage of beam-interception materials and accelerator components, such as a magnet coil. The displacement per atom (dpa) is used as a damage index, which is derived by integrating the particle flux and the displacement cross section based on the NRT model. Although the dpa is employed as the standard, the experimental data of displacement cross section are scarce for a proton in the energy region above 20 MeV. To obtain the data for superconducting materials for high-intensity accelerators and magnets, the displacement cross section of Nb for proton irradiation with a kinetic energy range between 0.4 and 3 GeV was measured. For sustaining damage in the sample, the Nb sample was cooled at a cryogenic temperature (8 K), where the recombination of Frenkel pairs due to thermal motion was well suppressed with maintaining the normal conductivity to maintain Matthiessen's rule. The displacement cross section of Nb was calculated using the PHITS code, and was compared with the present experimental results. It was found that the widely utilized NRT model overestimates the cross section by a factor of 2, as suggested by the previous works. It was also found that the calculation with a recently proposed athermal recombination corrected (arc) model based on Molecular Dynamics (MD) shows good agreement with the present data.

Development of safety design philosophy of HTTR-Heat Application Test Facility

Aoki, Takeshi; Shimizu, Atsushi; Noguchi, Hiroki; Kurahayashi, Kaoru; Yasuda, Takanori; Nomoto, Yasunobu; Iigaki, Kazuhiko; Sato, Hiroyuki; Sakaba, Nariaki

Proceedings of 30th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE30) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2023/05

The safety design philosophy is developed for the HTTR (High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor) heat application test facility connecting high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) and the hydrogen production plant. The philosophy was proposed to apply proven conventional chemical plant standards to the hydrogen production facility for ensuring public safety against anticipated disasters caused by high pressure and combustible gases. The present study also proposed the safety design philosophy to meet specific safety requirements identified to the nuclear facilities with coupling to the hydrogen production facility such as measures to ensure a capability of normal operation of the nuclear facility against a fire and/or explosion of leaked combustible material, and fluctuation of amount of heat removal occurred in the hydrogen production plant. The safety design philosophy will be utilized to establish its basic and detailed designs of the HTTR-heat application test facility.

Japanese Evaluated Nuclear Data Library version 5; JENDL-5

Iwamoto, Osamu; Iwamoto, Nobuyuki; Kunieda, Satoshi; Minato, Futoshi; Nakayama, Shinsuke; Abe, Yutaka*; Tsubakihara, Kosuke*; Okumura, Shin*; Ishizuka, Chikako*; Yoshida, Tadashi*; et al.

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 60(1), p.1 - 60, 2023/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2022.2141903

"Southwestern" boundary of the island of inversion; First study of low-lying bound excited states in V and V

Elekes, Z.*; Juhsz, M. M.*; Sohler, D.*; Sieja, K.*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Achouri, N. L.*; Baba, Hidetada*; et al.

Physical Review C, 106(6), p.064321_1 - 064321_10, 2022/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.106.064321

The low-lying level structure of V and V was investigated for the first time. The neutron knockout reaction and inelastic proton scattering were applied for V while the neutron knock-out reaction provided the data for V. Four and five new transitions were determined for V and V, respectively. Based on the comparison to our shell-model calculations using the Lenzi-Nowacki-Poves-Sieja (LNPS) interaction, three of the observed rays for each isotope could be placed in the level scheme and assigned to the decay of the first 11/2 and 9/2 levels. The (,) excitation cross sections for V were analyzed by the coupled-channels formalism assuming quadrupole plus hexadecapole deformations. Due to the role of the hexadecapole deformation, V could not be unambiguously placed on the island of inversion.

Measurement of nuclide production cross sections for proton-induced reactions on Ni and Zr at 0.4, 1.3, 2.2, and 3.0 GeV

Takeshita, Hayato*; Meigo, Shinichiro; Matsuda, Hiroki*; Iwamoto, Hiroki; Nakano, Keita; Watanabe, Yukinobu*; Maekawa, Fujio

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 527, p.17 - 27, 2022/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2022.07.002

To improve accuracy of nuclear design of accelerator driven nuclear transmutation systems and so on, nuclide production cross sections on Ni and Zr were measured for GeV energy protons. The measured results were compared with PHITS calculations, JENDL/HE-2007 and so on.