Improving the safety of the high temperature gas-cooled reactor "HTTR" based on Japan's new regulatory requirements

Hamamoto, Shimpei; Shimizu, Atsushi; Inoi, Hiroyuki; Tochio, Daisuke; Homma, Fumitaka; Sawahata, Hiroaki; Sekita, Kenji; Watanabe, Shuji; Furusawa, Takayuki; Iigaki, Kazuhiko; et al.

Nuclear Engineering and Design, 388, p.111642_1 - 111642_11, 2022/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2021.111642

Following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in 2011, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency adapted High-Temperature engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) to meet the new regulatory requirements that began in December 2013. The safety and seismic classifications of the existing structures, systems, and components were discussed to reflect insights regarding High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs) that were acquired through various HTTR safety tests. Structures, systems, and components that are subject to protection have been defined, and countermeasures to manage internal and external hazards that affect safety functions have been strengthened. Additionally, measures are in place to control accidents that may cause large amounts of radioactive material to be released, as a beyond design based accident. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission rigorously and appropriately reviewed this approach for compliance with the new regulatory requirements. After nine amendments, the application to modify the HTTR's installation license that was submitted in November 2014 was approved in June 2020. This response shows that facilities can reasonably be designed to meet the enhanced regulatory requirements, if they reflect the characteristics of HTGRs. We believe that we have established a reference for future development of HTGR.

Carrying-out of whole nuclear fuel materials in Plutonium Research Building No.1

Inagawa, Jun; Kitatsuji, Yoshihiro; Otobe, Haruyoshi; Nakada, Masami; Takano, Masahide; Akie, Hiroshi; Shimizu, Osamu; Komuro, Michiyasu; Oura, Hirofumi*; Nagai, Isao*; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2021-001, 144 Pages, 2021/08

JAEA-Technology-2021-001.pdf:12.98MB

Plutonium Research Building No.1 (Pu1) was qualified as a facility to decommission, and preparatory operations for decommission were worked by the research groups users and the facility managers of Pu1. The operation of transportation of whole nuclear materials in Pu1 to Back-end Cycle Key Element Research Facility (BECKY) completed at Dec. 2020. In the operation included evaluation of criticality safety for changing permission of the license for use nuclear fuel materials in BECKY, cask of the transportation, the registration request of the cask at the institute, the test transportation, formulation of plan for whole nuclear materials transportation, and the main transportation. This report circumstantially shows all of those process to help prospective decommission.

Cryogenic sample environments shared at the MLF, J-PARC

Kawamura, Seiko; Takahashi, Ryuta*; Ishikado, Motoyuki*; Yamauchi, Yasuhiro*; Nakamura, Masatoshi*; Ouchi, Keiichi*; Kira, Hiroshi*; Kambara, Wataru*; Aoyama, Kazuhiro*; Sakaguchi, Yoshifumi*; et al.

Journal of Neutron Research, 21(1-2), p.17 - 22, 2019/05

https://doi.org/10.3233/JNR-190106

The Cryogenics and Magnets group in the Sample Environment team is responsible for operation of cryostats and magnets for user's experiments at the MLF in J-PARC. We have introduced a top-loading He cryostat, a bottom-loading He cryostat, a dilution refrigerator insert and a superconducting magnet. The frequency of use of them dramatically becomes higher in these two years, as the beam power and the number of proposal increase. To respond such situation, we have made efforts to enhance performance of these equipment as follows. The He cryostat originally involves an operation software for automatic initial cooling down to the base temperature and automatic re-charge of He. Recently we made an additional program for automatic temperature control with only the sorb heater. Last year, a new outer vacuum chamber of the magnet with an oscillating radial collimator (ORC) was fabricated. The data quality was drastically improved by introducing this ORC so that the magnet can be used even for the inelastic neutron scattering experiments.

Preliminary missions for the decommissioning of the laboratory building No.1 for the plutonium research program

Segawa, Yukari; Horita, Takuma; Kitatsuji, Yoshihiro; Kumagai, Yuta; Aoyagi, Noboru; Nakada, Masami; Otobe, Haruyoshi; Tamura, Yukito*; Okamoto, Hisato; Otomo, Takashi; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2016-039, 64 Pages, 2017/03

JAEA-Technology-2016-039.pdf:5.24MB

The laboratory building No.1 for the plutonium research program (Bldg. Pu1) was chosen as one of the facilities to decommission by Japan Atomic Energy Agency Reform in September, 2013. The research groups, users of Bldg. Pu1, were driven by necessity to remove used equipment and transport nuclear fuel to other facilities from Bldg. Pu1. Research Group for Radiochemistry proactively established the Used Equipment Removal Team for the smooth operation of the removal in April, 2015. The team classified six types of work into the nature of the operation, removal of used equipment, disposal of chemicals, stabilization of mercury, stabilization of nuclear fuel, transportation of nuclear fuel and radioisotope, and survey of contamination status inside the glove boxes. These works were completed in December, 2015. This report circumstantially shows six works process, with the exception of the approval of the changes on the usage of nuclear fuel in Bldg. Pu1 to help prospective decommission.

Progress report of Japanese simulation research projects using the high-performance computer system Helios in the International Fusion Energy Research Centre

Ishizawa, Akihiro*; Idomura, Yasuhiro; Imadera, Kenji*; Kasuya, Naohiro*; Kanno, Ryutaro*; Satake, Shinsuke*; Tatsuno, Tomoya*; Nakata, Motoki*; Nunami, Masanori*; Maeyama, Shinya*; et al.

Purazuma, Kaku Yugo Gakkai-Shi, 92(3), p.157 - 210, 2016/03

http://www.jspf.or.jp/Journal/PDF_JSPF/jspf2016_03/jspf2016_03-157.pdf

The high-performance computer system Helios which is located at The Computational Simulation Centre (CSC) in The International Fusion Energy Research Centre (IFERC) started its operation in January 2012 under the Broader Approach (BA) agreement between Japan and the EU. The Helios system has been used for magnetised fusion related simulation studies in the EU and Japan and has kept high average usage rate. As a result, the Helios system has contributed to many research products in a wide range of research areas from core plasma physics to reactor material and reactor engineering. This project review gives a short catalogue of domestic simulation research projects. First, we outline the IFERC-CSC project. After that, shown are objectives of the research projects, numerical schemes used in simulation codes, obtained results and necessary computations in future.

Development of the negative ion beams relevant to ITER and JT-60SA at Japan Atomic Energy Agency

Hanada, Masaya; Kojima, Atsushi; Tobari, Hiroyuki; Nishikiori, Ryo; Hiratsuka, Junichi; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Umeda, Naotaka; Yoshida, Masafumi; Ichikawa, Masahiro; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; et al.

Review of Scientific Instruments, 87(2), p.02B322_1 - 02B322_4, 2016/02

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4934584

In International Thermo-nuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and JT-60 Super Advanced (JT-60 SA), the D ion beams of 1 MeV, 40 A and 0.5 MeV, 22 A are required to produce 3600 s and 100 s for the neutral beam injection, respectively. In order to realize such as powerful D ion beams for long duration time, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has energetically developed cesium (Cs)-seeded negative ion sources (CsNIS) and electro-static multi-aperture and multi-stage accelerators (MAMuG accelerator) which are chosen as the reference design of ITER and JT-60 SA. In the development of the CsNIS, a 100s production of the H ion beam has been demonstrated with a beam current of 15 A by modifying the JT-60 negative ion source. At the higher current, the long pulse production of the negative ions has been tried by the mitigation of the arcing in the plasma inside the ion source. As for the long pulse acceleration of the negative ions in the MAMuG accelerator, the beam steering angle has been controlled to reduce the power loading of the acceleration grids A pulse duration time has been significantly extended from 0.4 s to 60 s at reasonable beam power for ITER requirement. The achieved pulse duration time is limited by the capacity of the power supplies in the test stand. In the range of 60 s, there are no degradations of beam optics and voltage holding capability in the accelerator. It leads to the further extension of the pulse duration time at higher power density. This paper reports the latest results of development on the negative ion source and accelerator at JAEA.

Measurement of heat load density profile on acceleration grid in MeV-class negative ion accelerator

Hiratsuka, Junichi; Hanada, Masaya; Kojima, Atsushi; Umeda, Naotaka; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Miyamoto, Kenji*; Yoshida, Masafumi; Nishikiori, Ryo; Ichikawa, Masahiro; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; et al.

Review of Scientific Instruments, 87(2), p.02B137_1 - 02B137_3, 2016/02

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4935636

To understand the physics of the negative ion extraction/acceleration, the heat load density profile on the acceleration grid has been firstly measured in the ITER prototype accelerator where the negative ions are accelerated to 1 MeV with five acceleration stages. In order to clarify the profile, the peripheries around the apertures on the acceleration grid were separated into thermally insulated 34 blocks with thermocouples. The spatial resolution is as low as 3 mm and small enough to measure the tail of the beam profile with a beam diameter of 16 mm. It was found that there were two peaks of heat load density around the aperture. These two peaks were also clarified to be caused by the intercepted negative ions and secondary electrons from detailed investigation by changing the beam optics and gas density profile. This is the first experimental result, which is useful to understand the trajectories of these particles.

Operational experience of CW SRF injector and main linac cryomodules at the Compact ERL

Sakai, Hiroshi*; Enami, Kazuhiro*; Furuya, Takaaki*; Kako, Eiji*; Kondo, Yoshinari*; Michizono, Shinichiro*; Miura, Takako*; Qiu, F.*; Sato, Masato*; Shinoe, Kenji*; et al.

Proceedings of 56th ICFA Advanced Beam Dynamics Workshop on Energy Recovery Linacs (ERL 2015) (Internet), p.63 - 66, 2015/12

http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/ERL2015/papers/weiblh2054.pdf

no abstracts in English

Development of an evaluation methodology for the natural circulation decay heat removal system in a sodium cooled fast reactor

Watanabe, Osamu*; Oyama, Kazuhiro*; Endo, Junji*; Doda, Norihiro; Ono, Ayako; Kamide, Hideki; Murakami, Takahiro*; Eguchi, Yuzuru*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 52(9), p.1102 - 1121, 2015/09

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2014.994049

A natural circulation (NC) evaluation methodology has been developed to ensure the safety of a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) of 1500MW adopting the NC decay heat removal system (DHRS). The methodology consists of a 1D safety analysis which can evaluate the core hot spot temperature taking into account the temperature flattening effect in the core, a 3D fluid flow analysis which can evaluate the thermal-hydraulics for local convections and thermal stratifications in the primary system and DHRS, and a statistical safety evaluation method. The safety analysis method and the 3D analysis method have been validated using results of a 1/10 scaled water test simulating the primary system of the SFR and a 1/7 scaled sodium test simulating the primary system and the DHRS, and the applicability of the safety analysis for the SFR has been confirmed by comparing with the 3D analysis. Finally, a statistical safety evaluation has been performed for the SFR using the safety analysis method.

Water experiments on thermal striping in reactor vessel of Japan Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor; Countermeasures for significant temperature fluctuation generation

Kobayashi, Jun; Ezure, Toshiki; Kamide, Hideki; Oyama, Kazuhiro*; Watanabe, Osamu*

Proceedings of 23rd International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-23) (DVD-ROM), 6 Pages, 2015/05

A column type upper internal structure (UIS) is installed in the upper plenum of reactor vessel in JSFR. High cycle thermal fatigue may occur at the bottom plate (CIP) of the UIS where the hot sodium from the fuel subassembly can mix with the cold sodium from the control rod channel and the blanket fuel subassembly. We have been conducted a water experiment using a reactor upper plenum model to grasp the thermal-hydraulic phenomena around control rod (CR) channels, and to obtain countermeasures for significant temperature fluctuation on the CIP. The experimental apparatus has 1/3 scale and 60 sector model of the reactor upper plenum. By the experiment, characteristics of fluid temperature fluctuation between the handling head of the assemblies and the CIP are measured and countermeasure for the significant temperature fluctuation generation will be discussed on the influence of the distance from the handling head outlet to the lower surface of the CIP.