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Watanabe, Tomoaki; Tada, Kenichi; Endo, Tomohiro*; Yamamoto, Akio*
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 16 Pages, 2025/04
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.00(Nuclear Science & Technology)This study investigated the impact of nuclear data updates from JENDL-4.0 (J4) to JENDL-5 (J5) on the light-water reactor fuel burnup calculations. Burnup calculations were conducted with J4 and J5 for PWR pin-cell and BWR fuel assembly geometries. The calculation results revealed significant burnup-dependent differences in the neutron multiplication factor (k
). Across the burnup range of 0-50 GWd/t, k
values of J5 were consistently smaller than those of J4 and the difference gradually increased as burnup progressed. Direct sensitivity calculations, in which each nuclide data was replaced from J4 to J5, indicated that updates to the cross-sections of 
U, 
U, and 
Pu and the thermal scattering law data of H in H
O notably impacted the k differences. For the BWR assembly geometry containing Gd fuels, large k differences were observed in the burnup range of 10-15 GWd/t. This difference was primarily attributed to updates in the U, 
Gd, and 
Gd cross-sections, and thermal scattering law data of H in HO. Furthermore, we investigated how the nuclear data updates affected the k differences by examining nuclide number densities, the energy-dependent sensitivities, and the neutron spectra.
Watanabe, Tomoaki; Aizawa, Naoto*; Chiba, Go*; Tada, Kenichi; Yamamoto, Akio*
Proceedings of International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2025/04
Currently, a major burnup calculation method for the nuclide composition of nuclear fuel conducts neutron transport calculations at each burnup step to account for changes in the neutron spectrum. While this method is highly accurate, the large computational cost of neutron transport calculations can be problematic. Therefore, a fast burnup calculation method based on neutron spectrum reconstruction with the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and regression model is investigated. In this method, dimensionality reduction by POD is applied to many neutron fluxes obtained from detailed burnup calculations for various input parameter sets, and regression models are constructed to connect the dimensionality-reduced neutron fluxes and parameters. By substituting arbitrary input parameters to the regression models, the neutron flux is reconstructed and the burnup calculation is performed. This method performs burnup calculations that consider changes in the neutron spectrum based on input conditions without neutron transport calculations. The present method was applied to a PWR UO fuel pin cell model. The results show the nuclide inventory can be calculated with a prediction accuracy within a few percent. In addition, it is found that the calculation error is dominated by the regression models, which implies the further improvement of the regression models leads to improving the accuracy.
Sugiyama, Hitoshi*; Kato, Kenichi*; Sekine, Naoko*; Sekine, Yurina; Watanabe, Tomoaki*; Fukazawa, Tomoko*
Chemical Physics Letters, 856, p.141655_1 - 141655_8, 2024/12
Times Cited Count：1 Percentile：42.16(Chemistry, Physical)To investigate the effects of polymer hydrophilicity on structures of water in hydrogels, differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction measurements were performed. The results show that the amount of intermediate water in polyacrylamide (PAA) hydrogel is about 12% smaller than that in poly-
-dimethylacrylamide (PDMAA) hydrogel. Furthermore, it was found that the bound water in PAA hydrogel primarily exists around the surface of the polymer bundles, whereas that in PDMAA hydrogel acts as a crosslinker factor for dehydration and water absorption in hydrogels.
Ishikawa, Akihisa; Tanaka, Hiroki*; Nakamura, Satoshi*; Kumada, Hiroaki*; Sakurai, Yoshinori*; Watanabe, Kenichi*; Yoshihashi, Sachiko*; Tanagami, Yuki*; Uritani, Akira*; Kiyanagi, Yoshiaki*
Journal of Radiation Research (Internet), 65(6), p.765 - 775, 2024/11
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.00(Biology)Watanabe, Tomoaki; Suyama, Kenya; Tada, Kenichi; Ferrer, R. M.*; Hykes, J.*; Wemple, C. A.*
Nuclear Science and Engineering, 198(11), p.2230 - 2239, 2024/11
Times Cited Count：1 Percentile：57.00(Nuclear Science & Technology)A new nuclear data library for the advanced lattice physics code CASMO5 has been prepared based on JENDL-5. In JENDL-5, many essential nuclides for conventional LWR analysis have also been modified based on state-of-the-art evaluations. The new JENDL-5-based CASMO5 library was prepared by replacing as much of the nuclear data of the current CASMO5 ENDF/B-VII.1-based library as possible with JENDL-5. This study verified and validated the new library. Verifications were performed based on the OECD/NEA burnup credit criticality safety benchmark phase III-C, and the calculated k and fuel compositions of the BWR fuel assembly were compared with reported benchmark results. Comparison with the MCNP6.2 result was also performed using the same benchmark model. In addition, the TCA critical experiment and Takahama-3 post-irradiation experiment were used for validation. The results indicate that the new library performs well and is comparable to the ENDF/B-VII.1-based library in predictions of reactivity and fuel compositions for LWR systems.
Oikawa, Kenichi; Matsumoto, Yoshihiro*; Watanabe, Kenichi*; Sato, Hirotaka*; Parker, J. D.*; Shinohara, Takenao; Kiyanagi, Yoshiaki*
Scientific Reports (Internet), 14, p.27990_1 - 27990_11, 2024/11
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.00(Multidisciplinary Sciences)Matsumoto, Yoshihiro*; Oikawa, Kenichi; Watanabe, Kenichi*; Sato, Hirotaka*; Parker, J. D.*; Shinohara, Takenao; Kiyanagi, Yoshiaki*
Journal of Archaeological Science; Reports, 58, p.104729_1 - 104729_10, 2024/10
Watanabe, Kenichi*; Sugai, Yusuke*; Hasegawa, Sota*; Tanaka, Seishiro*; Hitomi, Keitaro*; Nogami, Mitsuhiro*; Shinohara, Takenao; Su, Y. H.; Parker, J. D.*; Kockelmann, W.*
Scientific Reports (Internet), 14, p.25224_1 - 25224_13, 2024/10
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.00(Multidisciplinary Sciences)
Cf rotation method with a water Cherenkov neutron detectorTanabe, Kosuke*; Komeda, Masao; Toh, Yosuke; Kitamura, Yasunori*; Misawa, Tsuyoshi*; Tsuchiya, Kenichi*; Sagara, Hiroshi*
Scientific Reports (Internet), 14, p.18828_1 - 18828_10, 2024/08
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.00(Multidisciplinary Sciences)Watanabe, Kenichi*; Oshima, Yuya*; Shigyo, Nobuhiro*; Hirata, Yuho
Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 63(5), p.056001_1 - 056001_5, 2024/05
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.00(Physics, Applied)Lithium-containing scintillators are used for neutron detection; Li-containing scintillators detect tritons and alpha rays produced by neutrons. Since these particles deposit higher energy than gamma rays, Li-containing scintillators can separate gamma rays and neutrons. However, the luminescence efficiency of scintillator decreases for ion beams due to a phenomenon called the quenching effect. Evaluation of the quenching effect is necessary to accurately separate neutrons and gamma rays. The Birks equation is used to predict the scintillation efficiency change due to the quenching effect, but it is necessary to determine the quenching coefficient in the Birks equation. In this study, we used PHITS to calculate the luminescence of Li-containing scintillators considering the quenching effect based on Birks' equation with the quenching coefficient as a free parameter. Then, by comparing the simulated results with the experimentally obtained luminescence, the extinction coefficients of Li glass, Ce:LiCaAlF
, and Eu:LiCaAlF scintillators were determined.
Watanabe, Kenichi*; Sugai, Yusuke*; Hasegawa, Sota*; Hitomi, Keitaro*; Nogami, Mitsuhiro*; Shinohara, Takenao; Su, Y. H.; Parker, J. D.*; Kockelmann, W.*
Sensors and Materials, 36(1), p.149 - 154, 2024/01
Times Cited Count：2 Percentile：67.31(Instruments & Instrumentation)Watanabe, Tomoaki; Tada, Kenichi; Endo, Tomohiro*; Yamamoto, Akio*
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 60(11), p.1386 - 1396, 2023/11
Times Cited Count：5 Percentile：73.39(Nuclear Science & Technology)The burnup calculations for estimating the nuclide composition of the spent fuel are highly dependent on nuclear data. Many nuclides in the latest version of the Japanese Evaluated Nuclear Data Library JENDL-5 were modified from JENDL-4.0 and the modification affects the burnup calculations. This study confirmed the validity of JENDL-5 in the burnup calculations. The PIE data of Takahama-3 was used for the validation. The effect of modifications of the parameters, e.g., cross sections and fission yields, from JENDL-4.0 to JENDL-5 on the nuclide compositions was quantitatively investigated. The calculation results showed that JENDL-5 has a similar performance to JENDL-4.0. The calculation results also revealed that the modifications of the cross sections of actinide nuclides, fission yields, and thermal scattering low data of hydrogen in HO affected the nuclide compositions of PWR spent fuels.
Oikawa, Kenichi; Sato, Hirotaka*; Watanabe, Kenichi*; Su, Y. H.; Shinohara, Takenao; Kai, Tetsuya; Kiyanagi, Yoshiaki*; Hasemi, Hiroyuki
Journal of Physics; Conference Series, 2605, p.012013_1 - 012013_6, 2023/10
Watanabe, Tomoaki; Tada, Kenichi; Endo, Tomohiro*; Yamamoto, Akio*
Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC2023) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2023/10
The latest Japanese nuclear data library, JENDL-5, was released in December 2021. In JENDL-5, nuclear reaction cross sections for Gd-155 and Gd-157 were modified in addition to many heavy nuclides such as U-235. Fission yields and decay data, which are essential to characterize burnup fuels, were completely revised. This study investigated the effects of the nuclear data revisions from JENDL-4.0 to JENDL-5 on the neutronic characteristics of burnup fuels to validate JENDL-5. Burnup calculations of the 9x9 STEP-3 BWR fuel assembly based on the OECD/NEA Phase III-C benchmark were performed using JENDL-4.0 and JENDL-5. As a result, the k for JENDL-5 was smaller than that of JENDL-4.0 throughout the burnup, with a large difference of about 600 pcm at 12 GWd/t, around the peak of the k. Above 20 GWd/t, the difference in k increases with increasing burnup value, reaching nearly 600 pcm at 50 GWd/t. In addition, this study investigates which nuclear data contribute significantly to the difference in k by performing burnup calculations with replacing nuclear data of individual nuclides from JENDL-4.0 to JENDL-5.
Akiyama, Yoichi; Shibanuma, So; Yanagisawa, Kenichi*; Yamada, Taichi; Suzuki, Kenta; Yoshida, Moeka; Ono, Takahiro; Kawabata, Kuniaki; Watanabe, Kaho; Morimoto, Kyoichi; et al.
JAEA-Review 2023-015, 60 Pages, 2023/09
JAEA-Review-2023-015.pdf:4.78MB
Naraha Center for Remote Control Technology Development (NARREC) was established in Japan Atomic Energy Agency to promote a decommissioning work of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (Fukushima Daiichi NPS). NARREC consists of a Full-scale Mock-up Test Building and Research Management Building. Various test facilities are installed in these buildings for the decommissioning work of Fukushima Daiichi NPS. These test facilities are intended to be used for various users, such as companies engaged in the decommissioning work, research and development institutions, educational institutions and so on. The number of NARREC facility uses was 84 in FY2021. We participated booth exhibitions and presentations on the decommissioning related events. Moreover, we also contributed to the development of human resources by supporting the 6th Creative Robot Contest for Decommissioning. As a new project, "Narahakko Children's Classroom" was implemented for elementary school students in Naraha Town. This report summarizes the activities of NARREC in FY2021, such as the utilization of facilities and equipment of NARREC, the development of remote-control technologies for supporting the decommissioning work, arrangement of the remote-control machines for emergency response, and training for operators by using the machines.
Abe, Shinichiro; Hashimoto, Masanori*; Liao, W.*; Kato, Takashi*; Asai, Hiroaki*; Shimbo, Kenichi*; Matsuyama, Hideya*; Sato, Tatsuhiko; Kobayashi, Kazutoshi*; Watanabe, Yukinobu*
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 70(8, Part 1), p.1652 - 1657, 2023/08
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：62.75(Engineering, Electrical & Electronic)Single event upsets (SEUs) caused by neutrons is a reliability problem for microelectronic devices in the terrestrial environment. Acceleration tests using white neutron beam provide realistic soft error rates (SERs), but only a few facilities can provide white neutron beam in the world. If single-source irradiation applicable to diverse neutron source can be utilized for the evaluation of the SER in the terrestrial environment, it contributes to solve the shortage of beam time. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of the SER estimation in the terrestrial environment by any one of these measured data with the SEU cross sections obtained by PHITS simulation. It was found that the SERs estimated by our proposed method are within a factor of 2.7 of that estimated by the Weibull function. We also investigated the effect of simplification which reduce the computational cost in simulation to the SER estimation.
Hirata, Sakiko*; Kusaka, Ryoji; Meiji, Shogo*; Tamekuni, Seita*; Okudera, Kosuke*; Hamada, Shoken*; Sakamoto, Chihiro*; Honda, Takumi*; Matsushita, Kosuke*; Muramatsu, Satoru*; et al.
Inorganic Chemistry, 62(1), p.474 - 486, 2023/01
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：28.83(Chemistry, Inorganic & Nuclear)Terasaka, Yuta; Watanabe, Kenichi*; Uritani, Akira*
Hoshasen (Internet), 47(3), p.89 - 96, 2022/10
Yamamoto, Kazami; Kinsho, Michikazu; Hayashi, Naoki; Saha, P. K.; Tamura, Fumihiko; Yamamoto, Masanobu; Tani, Norio; Takayanagi, Tomohiro; Kamiya, Junichiro; Shobuda, Yoshihiro; et al.
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 59(9), p.1174 - 1205, 2022/09
Times Cited Count：7 Percentile：74.40(Nuclear Science & Technology)In the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex, the purpose of the 3 GeV rapid cycling synchrotron (RCS) is to accelerate a 1 MW, high-intensity proton beam. To achieve beam operation at a repetition rate of 25 Hz at high intensities, the RCS was elaborately designed. After starting the RCS operation, we carefully verified the validity of its design and made certain improvements to establish a reliable operation at higher power as possible. Consequently, we demonstrated beam operation at a high power, namely, 1 MW. We then summarized the design, actual performance, and improvements of the RCS to achieve a 1 MW beam.
Hirata, Yuho; Sato, Tatsuhiko; Watanabe, Kenichi*; Ogawa, Tatsuhiko; Parisi, A.*; Uritani, Akira*
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 59(7), p.915 - 924, 2022/07
Times Cited Count：12 Percentile：89.29(Nuclear Science & Technology)The reliability of dose assessment with radiation detectors is an important feature in various fields, such as radiotherapy, radiation protection, and high-energy physics. However, many detectors irradiated by high linear energy transfer (LET) radiations exhibit decreased efficiency called the quenching effect. This quenching effect depends not only on the particle LET but strongly on the ion species and its microscopic pattern of energy deposition. Recently, a computational method for estimating the relative efficiency of luminescence detectors was proposed following analysis of microdosimetric specific energy distributions simulated using the particle and heavy ion transport code system (PHITS). This study applied the model to estimate the relative optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) efficiency of BaFBr:Eu detectors. Additionally, we measured the luminescence intensity of BaFBr:Eu detectors exposed to 
He, 
C and 
Ne ions to verify the calculated data. The model reproduced the experimental data in the cases of adopting a microdosimetric target diameter of approximately 30-50 nm. The calculated relative efficiency exhibit ion-species dependence in addition to LET. This result shows that the microdosimetric calculation from specific energy is a successful method for accurately understanding the results of OSL measurements with BaFBr:Eu detectors irradiated by various particles.
