Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory Project Investigation report for the 2024 fiscal year

Nakayama, Masashi; Ishii, Eiichi; Aoyagi, Kazuhei; Hayano, Akira; Murakami, Hiroaki; Ono, Hirokazu; Takeda, Masaki; Fukatsu, Yuta; Mochizuki, Akihito; Ozaki, Yusuke; et al.

JAEA-Review 2025-042, 136 Pages, 2025/12

JAEA-Review-2025-042.pdf:12.95MB

The Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory (URL) Project is being pursued by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to enhance the reliability of relevant technologies for geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste through investigating the deep geological environment within the host sedimentary rocks at Horonobe-cho in Hokkaido, north Japan. In the fiscal year 2024, we continued R&D on "Study on near-field system performance in geological environment", "Demonstration of repository design options", and "Understanding of buffering behaviour of sedimentary rock to natural perturbations". These are identified as key R&D on challenges to be tackled in the Horonobe underground research plan for the fiscal year 2020 onwards. Specifically, "full-scale engineered barrier system (EBS) performance experiment" and "solute transport experiment with model testing" were carried out as part of "Study on nearfield system performance in geological environment". "Demonstration of engineering feasibility of repository technology" and "evaluation of EBS behaviour over 100C" were addressed for "Demonstration of repository design options". The validation of a method for assessing permeability using the Ductility Index and a method for estimating the state of in-situ ground pressure from hydraulic perturbation tests were investigated as part of the study "Understanding of buffering behaviour of sedimentary rock to natural perturbations". In FY2024, we continued construction of the East Access Shaft and the Ventilation Shaft, and construction of these shafts were completed to a depth of 500 m. After the completion of the East Access Shaft, excavation of the West Access Shaft and 500 m gallery has began. As of the end of FY2024, excavation progress is as follows, the East Access Shaft and the Ventilation Shaft were 500 m depth, the West Access Shaft was 472 m depth, 500 m gallery was 112.9 m, respectively. In the Horonobe International Project (HIP), Management Board and Joint Task Meeting was held at the Horonobe URL in June 2024 to review the progress of construction of galleries and preparations of experiments. Task Meetings to review the implementation plan for in-situ testing and analysis were also held. HIP will be implemented in two phases: Phase 1 (from FY2022 to FY2024) and Phase 2 (from FY2025 to FY2028), the research results of Phase 1 were compiled in FY2024.

Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory Project Investigation Program for the Fiscal Year 2025

Nakayama, Masashi; Ishii, Eiichi; Hayano, Akira; Aoyagi, Kazuhei; Murakami, Hiroaki; Ono, Hirokazu; Takeda, Masaki; Mochizuki, Akihito; Ozaki, Yusuke; Kimura, Shun; et al.

JAEA-Review 2025-027, 80 Pages, 2025/09

JAEA-Review-2025-027.pdf:6.22MB

The Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory Project is being pursued by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency to enhance the reliability of relevant technologies for geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste through investigating the deep geological environment within the host sedimentary rocks at Horonobe Town in Hokkaido, north Japan. In the fiscal year 2025, we continue R&D on "Study on near-field system performance in geological environment" and "Demonstration of repository design options". These are identified as key R&D challenges to be tackled in the Horonobe underground research plan for the fiscal year 2020 onwards. In the "Study on near-field system performance in geological environment", we continue to obtain data from the full-scale engineered barrier system performance experiment, and work on the specifics of the full-scale engineered barrier system dismantling experiment. As for "Demonstration of repository design options", the investigation, design, and evaluation techniques are to be systemized at various scales, from the tunnel to the pit, by means of an organized set of evaluation methodologies for confinement performance at these respective scales. Preliminary borehole investigations will be conducted within a 500 m gallery, with the objectives of obtaining rock strength and rock permeability data, as well as surveying the extent of the excavation damaged zone surrounding the test tunnel via tomographic analysis. A planning study for the in-situ construction test will be conducted to investigate the construction of backfill material and watertight plugs. The volume of water inflow associated with the excavation of the 500 m gallery will be observed, and its magnitude will be compared with the range of water inflow predicted in the analysis. The test plan to determine the extent of the excavation damaged zone around the pit, which is planned to be constructed in the 500 m gallery, will be studied to determine the in-situ excavation damaged zone. In addition, the investigation and evaluation methods for the amount of water inflow from fractures and the extent of the excavation damaged zone around the pit will be organized. Concerning the construction and maintenance of the subsurface facilities, excavation of the West Access Shaft and the 500 m gallery will continue. It is anticipated that the construction of the facilities will be completed by the end of the fiscal year 2025. In addition, we continue R&D on the following three tasks in the Horonobe International Project; Task A: Solute transport experiment with model testing, Task B: Systematic integration of repository technology options, and Task C: Full-scale engineered barrier system dismantling experiment.

Identification of coral spawn source areas around Sekisei Lagoon for recovery and poleward habitat migration by using a particle-tracking model

Takeda, Naoya*; Kashima, Motohiko*; Odani, Sachika*; Uchiyama, Yusuke*; Kamidaira, Yuki; Mitarai, Satoshi*

Scientific Reports (Internet), 11(1), p.6963_1 - 6963_10, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-86167-5

A massive coral bleaching event occurred in 2016 in the interior of Japan's largest coral lagoon, the Sekisei Lagoon, located in the Kuroshio upstream region in southwestern Japan. Recovery of the coral lagoon will require the influx of coral spawn and larvae; therefore, it is important to identify and conserve source sites. A surface particle tracking simulation of coral spawn and larvae was used to identify source areas in the exterior Sekisei Lagoon for restoration of the interior lagoon. The northern coastal zone of Iriomote Island, including Hatoma Island, was identified as a major source area. Hatoma Island was also identified as a key source for the Kuroshio downstream region, making it one of the most important source areas in the Nansei Archipelago.

Structure of nitride layer formed on titanium alloy surface by N-gas exposure at high temperatures

Takeda, Yusuke; Iida, Kiyoshi*; Sato, Shinji*; Matsuo, Tadatoshi*; Nagashima, Yasuyuki*; Okubo, Nariaki; Kondo, Keietsu; Hirade, Tetsuya

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 25, p.011023_1 - 011023_3, 2019/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.25.011023

In this study, we prepared samples under two different conditions, (1) 810C, for 600 min, and (2) 850C, for 720 min. A depth-profile analysis of the surfaces of the samples is conducted through Doppler broadening (DB) measurements of positron annihilation rays using a slow positron beam. It was indicated that many of positrons annihilated in defects near the surface. According to the TEM image, there are nano-crystal grains near the surface and then positrons can diffuse in the grains and annihilate in defects at the grain boundaries. Furthermore, DB measurements indicated that there is a depth dependence on the chemical composition where positrons annihilate. EDS spectroscopy measurements also indicated that there is a depth dependence of impurities such as Vanadium. These results indicated change of the chemical composition at the grain boundaries.

A Failure investigation of the beam collimator system in the J-PARC 3 GeV rapid cycling synchrotron

Okabe, Kota; Yamamoto, Kazami; Kamiya, Junichiro; Takayanagi, Tomohiro; Yamamoto, Masanobu; Yoshimoto, Masahiro; Takeda, Osamu*; Horino, Koki*; Ueno, Tomoaki*; Yanagibashi, Toru*; et al.

Proceedings of 14th Annual Meeting of Particle Accelerator Society of Japan (Internet), p.853 - 857, 2017/12

http://www.pasj.jp/web_publish/pasj2017/proceedings/PDF/WEP0/WEP021.pdf

The most important issue is to reduce the uncontrolled beam loss in the high intensity hadron accelerator such as J-PARC proton accelerators. The J-PARC 3 GeV Synchrotron (RCS) has a collimator system which narrows a high intensity beam in the RCS. After startup of RCS in 2007, the collimator system of the RCS worked well. However, in April 2016, vacuum leakage at the collimator system occurred during the maintenance operation. To investigate a cause of the failure, we took apart iron shields of the collimator reducing exposed dose of operators. As a result of inspection, we succeeded to identify the cause of the vacuum leakage failure. In this presentation, we report the failure investigation of the beam collimator system in the RCS.

Vacuum chromatography of Tl on SiO at the single-atom level

Steinegger, P.*; Asai, Masato; Dressler, R.*; Eichler, R.*; Kaneya, Yusuke*; Mitsukai, Akina*; Nagame, Yuichiro; Piguet, D.*; Sato, Tetsuya; Schdel, M.; et al.

Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 120(13), p.7122 - 7132, 2016/04

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.5b12033

A new experimental method "vacuum chromatography" has been developed to measure adsorption enthalpy of superheavy elements, and its feasibility has been examined using short-lived thallium isotopes. The short-lived thallium isotopes were produced at the JAEA tandem accelerator. The thallium ion beam prepared with an on-line isotope separator which ionized and mass-separated the thallium isotopes was injected into an isothermal vacuum chromatography apparatus. A temperature-dependent adsorption property of thallium atom on SiO surface were measured. The adsorption enthalpy of thallium was determined to be 158 kJ/mol. The thallium is a homolog of element 113. Thus, the vacuum chromatography developed in this study enables us to perform chemical experiments for short-lived superheavy elements with half-lives of a order of one second.

Observation of itinerant Ce 4 electronic states in CeIrSi studied by angle-resolved Ce 3 resonance photoemission spectroscopy

Okochi, Takuo*; Toshimitsu, Takafumi*; Yamagami, Hiroshi; Fujimori, Shinichi; Yasui, Akira; Takeda, Yukiharu; Okane, Tetsuo; Saito, Yuji; Fujimori, Atsushi; Miyauchi, Yuichiro*; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 78(8), p.084802_1 - 084802_6, 2009/08

https://doi.org/10.1143/JPSJ.78.084802

We have applied angle-resolved Ce 34 resonance photoemission spectroscopy to the non-centrosymmetric pressure-induced superconductor CeIrSi and obtained the 4 band-structure and Fermi surfaces. We have found that the Ce 4 states are located mainly near the Fermi level and that the photoemission intensity derived from the dispersive conduction bands across the Fermi level shows considerable resonant enhancement. In addition, the band structure and Fermi surfaces of CeIrSi are different from those of the non- reference compound, LaIrSi and the difference is well explained by the band structure calculated within the local density approximation (LDA). These results strongly suggest that the Ce 4 electrons in CeIrSi are well hybridized with conduction bands and form itinerant electronic states.

The de Haas-van Alphen oscillation and fermi surface properties of YCuSi

Nguyen, D.; Matsuda, Tatsuma; Ikeda, Shugo*; Yamamoto, Etsuji; Haga, Yoshinori; Takeda, Yuji*; Endo, Toyoaki*; Doi, Yusuke*; Settai, Rikio*; Harima, Hisatomo*; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 77(9), p.094702_1 - 094702_6, 2008/09

https://doi.org/10.1143/JPSJ.77.094702

We have succeeded in growing a high-quality single crystal of a non-4 reference compound YCuSi for a heavy-fermion superconductor CeCuSi, and observed the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) oscillation. The detected dHvA branches in YCuSi indicate that the Fermi surfaces are multiply connected, and the dHvA frequencies are in the range from 9 to 2 Oe. These dHvA branches are found to be well explained by the results of energy band calculations. The corresponding cyclotron masses are light, ranging from 0.4 to 1.5 , and are consistent with the electronic specific heat coefficient of 2.2 mJ/Kmol.

Polarization transfer in the O() reaction at forward angles and structure of the spin-dipole resonances

Kawabata, Takahiro*; Ishikawa, Takatsugu*; Ito, Masatoshi*; Nakamura, M.*; Sakaguchi, Harutaka*; Takeda, H.*; Taki, T.*; Uchida, Makoto*; Yasuda, Yusuke*; Yosoi, Masaru*; et al.

Physical Review C, 65(6), p.064316_1 - 064316_12, 2002/06

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.65.064316

no abstracts in English

Giant monopole resonances in deformed nuclei

Ito, Masatoshi*; Sakaguchi, Harutaka*; Ishikawa, Takatsugu*; Kawabata, Takahiro*; Murakami, Tetsuya*; Takeda, H.*; Taki, T.*; Tsukahara, N.*; Uchida, Makoto*; Yasuda, Yusuke*; et al.

Nuclear Physics A, 687(1-2), p.52c - 57c, 2001/04

no abstracts in English