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Haga, Katsuhiro; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Naoe, Takashi; Wakui, Takashi; Wakai, Eiichi; Futakawa, Masatoshi
Proceedings of 19th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-19) (Internet), 13 Pages, 2022/03
The cross-flow type target was developed as the basic design of mercury target in J-PARC, and the design has been improved to realize the MW-class pulsed spallation neutron source. When the high-power and short-pulsed proton beam is injected into the mercury target, pressure waves are generated in mercury by rapid heat generation. The pressure waves induce the cavitation damages on the target vessel. Two countermeasures were adopted, namely, the injection of microbubbles into mercury and the double walled structure at the beam window. The bubble generator was installed in the target vessel to absorb the volume inflation of mercury and mitigate the pressure waves. Also, the double walled target vessel was designed to suppress the cavitation damage by the large velocity gradient of rapid mercury flow in the narrow channel of double wall. Finally, we could attain 1 MW beam operation with the duration time of 36.5 hours in 2020, and achieved the long term stable operation with 740 kW from April in 2021. This report shows the technical development of the high-power mercury target vessel in view of thermal hydraulics to attain 1 MW operation.
Naoe, Takashi; Kinoshita, Hidetaka; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Wakui, Takashi; Wakai, Eiichi; Haga, Katsuhiro; Takada, Hiroshi
Materials Science Forum, 1024, p.111 - 120, 2021/03
The mercury target vessel for the at the J-PARC neutron source is severely damaged by the cavitation caused by proton beam-induced pressure waves in mercury. To mitigate the cavitation damage, we adopted a double-walled structure with a narrow channel for the mercury at the beam window of the vessel. In addition, gas microbubbles were injected into the mercury to suppress the pressure waves. The front end of the vessel was cut out to inspect the effect of the damage mitigation technologies on the interior surface. The results showed that the double-walled target facing the mercury with gas microbubbles operating at 1812 MWh for an average power of 434 kW had equivalent damage to the single-walled target without microbubbles operating 1048 MWh for average power of 181 kW. The erosion depth due to cavitation in the narrow channel was clearly smaller than it was on the wall facing the bubbling mercury
Wakui, Takashi; Wakai, Eiichi; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Naoe, Takashi; Hanano, Kohei*; Haga, Katsuhiro; Shimada, Tsubasa*; Kanomata, Kenichi*
Materials Science Forum, 1024, p.145 - 150, 2021/03
To realize a high beam power operation at the J-PARC, a mercury target vessel covered with water shroud was developed. In the first step, to realize an operation at 500 kW, the basic structure of the initial design was followed and the connection method between the mercury vessel and the water shroud was changed. Additionally, the operation at a beam power of 500 kW was realized in approximately eight months. In the second step, to realize the operation at 1 MW, the new structure in which only rear ends of vessels were connected was investigated. Cooling of the mercury vessel is used to reduce thermal stress and thick vessels of the water shroud are used to increase stiffness for the internal pressure; therefore, it was adopted. The stress in each vessel was lower than the allowable stress based on the pressure vessel code criteria prescribed in the Japan Industrial Standard, and confirmation was obtained that the operation with a beam power of 1 MW could be conducted.
Naoe, Takashi; Kinoshita, Hidetaka; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Wakui, Takashi; Wakai, Eiichi; Haga, Katsuhiro; Takada, Hiroshi
JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 28, p.081004_1 - 081004_6, 2020/02
The beam window of the mercury target vessel in J-PARC is severely damaged by the cavitation. The cavitation damage is a crucial factor to limit lifetime of the target because it increases with the beam power. Therefore, mitigating cavitation damage is an important issue to operate the target stably for long time at 1 MW. At J-PARC, to mitigate the cavitation damage: gas microbubbles are injected into mercury for suppressing pressure waves, and double-walled structure with a narrow channel of 2 mm in width to form high-speed mercury flow (
4m/s) has been adopted. After operation, the beam window was cut to inspect the effect of the cavitation damage mitigation on inner wall. We optimized cutting conditions through the cold cutting tests, succeeding in cutting the target No.2 (without damage mitigation technologies) smoothly in 2017, and target No.8 with damage mitigation technologies. In the workshop, progress of cavitation damage observation for the target vessel will be presented.
Wakui, Takashi; Wakai, Eiichi; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Naoe, Takashi; Hanano, Kohei; Haga, Katsuhiro; Takada, Hiroshi; Shimada, Tsubasa*; Kanomata, Kenichi*
JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 28, p.081002_1 - 081002_6, 2020/02
A mercury target vessel of J-PRAC is designed with a triple-walled structure consisting of the mercury vessel and a double-walled water shroud with internal and external vessels. During the beam operation at 500 kW in 2015, small water leakages from a water shroud of the mercury target vessel occurred twice. Design, fabrication and inspection processes were improved based on the lessons learned from the target failures. The total length of welding lines at the front of the mercury target vessel decreases drastically to approximately 55% by adopting monolithic structure cut out from a block of stainless steel by the wire-electrical discharge machining. Thorough testing of welds by radiographic testing and ultrasonic testing was conducted. The fabrication of the mercury target vessel #8 was finished on September 2017 and the beam operation using it started. Stable beam operation at 500 kW has been achieved and it could experience the maximum beam power of 1 MW during a beam test.
Wakui, Takashi; Ishii, Hideaki*; Naoe, Takashi; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Haga, Katsuhiro; Wakai, Eiichi; Takada, Hiroshi; Futakawa, Masatoshi
Materials Transactions, 60(6), p.1026 - 1033, 2019/06
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：17.96(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)The mercury target has large size as 1.3
1.32.5 m
. In view of reducing the amount of wastes, we studied the structure so that the fore part could be separated. The flange is required to have high seal performance less than 110
Pa m/s. Invar with low thermal expansion is a candidate. Due to its low stiffness, however, the flange may deform when it is fastened by bolts. Practically invar is reinforced with stainless steel where all interface between them has to be bonded completely with the HIP bonding. In this study, we made specimens at four temperatures and conducted tensile tests. The specimen bonded at 973 K had little diffusion layer, and so fractured at the interface. The tensile strength reduced with increasing the temperature, and the reduced amount was about 10% at 1473 K. The analyzed residual stresses near the interface increased by 50% at maximum. Then, we concluded that the optimum temperature was 1173 K.
Wakui, Takashi; Wakai, Eiichi; Naoe, Takashi; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Haga, Katsuhiro; Takada, Hiroshi; Shintaku, Yohei*; Li, T.*; Kanomata, Kenichi*
Choompa Techno, 30(5), p.16 - 20, 2018/10
A mercury target vessel has been used for the spallation neutron source at J-PARC. It has a complicated multi-layered structure composed of a mercury target and a surrounding double-walled water shroud, which is assembled with thin plates (minimum thickness of 3 mm) by welding. Thus, welding inspection during the manufacturing process is important. We investigated the applicability of new ultrasonic inspections using specimens (thickness of 3 mm) with defects to improve the accuracy of welding inspection for the mercury target vessel. Immersion ultrasonic testing using a probe (frequency of 50 MHz) could detect a spherical defect with a diameter of 0.2 mm. The size was smaller than target value of 0.4 mm. The length of unwelded region estimated using the phased array ultrasonic testing corresponded with the actual length (0.8 - 1.5 mm).
Naoe, Takashi; Wakui, Takashi; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Wakai, Eiichi; Haga, Katsuhiro; Takada, Hiroshi
Advanced Experimental Mechanics, 3, p.123 - 128, 2018/08
A mercury target vessel, composed of SUS316L, is used for the pulsed neutron source and is assembled via TIG welding. While in operation, the target vessel suffers ca. 10
loading cycles with a high strain rate of ca. 50 s
because of the proton-beam-induced pressure waves in mercury. The gigacycle fatigue strength for solution annealed SUS316L stainless steels and its welded specimens were investigated through ultrasonic fatigue tests. The experimental results showed that an obvious fatigue limit was not observed at fewer than 10 cycles for the base metal. In the case of no weld defects observed via penetration tests, the fatigue strength of the removed-weld-bead specimen, in which the weld lines were arranged at the center of the specimen, appeared to be slightly higher than that of the base metal. By contrast, as-welded specimens with the weld bead intact showed apparent degradation of the fatigue strength owing to the stress concentration around the weld toe.
Wakui, Takashi; Wakai, Eiichi; Naoe, Takashi; Shintaku, Yohei*; Li, T.*; Murakami, Kazuya*; Kanomata, Kenichi*; Kogawa, Hiroyuki; Haga, Katsuhiro; Takada, Hiroshi; et al.
Journal of Nuclear Materials, 506, p.3 - 11, 2018/08
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：30.05(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)The mercury target vessel is designed as multi-walled structure with thin wall (min. 3 mm), and assembled by welding. In order to estimate the structural integrity of the vessel, it is important to measure the defects in welding accurately. For nondestructive tests of the welding, radiographic testing is applicable but it is difficult to detect for some defect shapes. Therefore it is effective to do ultrasonic testing together with it. Because ultrasonic methods prescribed in JIS inspect on the plate with more than 6 mm in thickness, these methods couldn't be applied as the inspection on the vessel with thin walls. In order to develop effective method, we carried out measurements using some testing method on samples with small defect whose size is specified. In the case of the latest phased array method, measured value agreed with actual size. It was found that this method was applicable to detect defects in the thin-walled structure for which accurate inspection was difficult so far.
Kondo, Hiroo; Kanemura, Takuji*; Furukawa, Tomohiro; Hirakawa, Yasushi; Wakai, Eiichi; Knaster, J.*
Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, 3(4), p.041005_1 - 041005_11, 2017/10
A liquid-Li free-surface stream flowing at 15 m/s under a high vacuum of 10
Pa is to serve as a beam target (Li target) for the planned International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) or other intense fusion neutron sources. This study focuses on cavitation-like acoustic noise which was detected in a conduit downstream from the Li target. This noise was measured by using acoustic-emission (AE) sensors that were installed at several locations of the conduit via acoustic wave guides. As a result, we found that cavitation occurred only in a narrow area where the Li target impinged on the downstream conduit.
Kondo, Hiroo; Kanemura, Takuji*; Furukawa, Tomohiro; Hirakawa, Yasushi; Wakai, Eiichi; Knaster, J.*
Nuclear Fusion, 57(6), p.066008_1 - 066008_10, 2017/07
Times Cited Count：15 Percentile：65.83(Physics, Fluids & Plasmas)A liquid-Li free-surface stream flowing at 15 m/s under a high vacuum of 10 Pa is to serve as a beam target (Li target) for the planned International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) or other intense fusion neutron sources. We determined that the stability of the Li target remained unchanged despite using it for an extended period of 1,561 h. This finding is regarded as a significant step toward the realization of the IFMIF and the potential use of relevant neutron sources such as A-FNS and DONES.
Wakai, Eiichi; Watanabe, Kazuyoshi*; Ito, Yuzuru*; Suzuki, Akihiro*; Terai, Takayuki*; Yagi, Juro*; Kondo, Hiroo; Kanemura, Takuji; Furukawa, Tomohiro; Hirakawa, Yasushi; et al.
Plasma and Fusion Research (Internet), 11, p.2405112_1 - 2405112_4, 2016/11
Kitazawa, Sin-iti*; Wakai, Eiichi; Aoto, Kazumi
Radiation Physics and Chemistry, 127, p.264 - 268, 2016/10
Times Cited Count：4 Percentile：36.53(Chemistry, Physical)The effects of annealing and double ion irradiation on nuclear structural materials were investigated using a novel, non-destructive, non-contact diagnostic method. A laser-induced and laser-detected surface acoustic wave (SAW) was adopted as a diagnostic system. The SAWs propagation velocity and the SAWs vibration velocity along the normal direction of the surface were measured to investigate mechanical properties of the substrates. Change of the shear modulus was detected in the annealed substrates. Non-linear effect on amplitude of the excited SAW was observed on the double ion irradiated materials. The potential of the SAW diagnostic system for assessing nuclear structural materials was demonstrated.
Furukawa, Tomohiro; Hirakawa, Yasushi; Kondo, Hiroo; Kanemura, Takuji; Wakai, Eiichi
Fusion Engineering and Design, 98-99, p.2138 - 2141, 2015/10
Times Cited Count：6 Percentile：45.92(Nuclear Science & Technology)In the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF), a back plate of the target assembly will be exchanged during the in-service period. During the works, the lithium components will react chemically with the surrounding atmosphere. In this research, the chemical reaction of lithium in air, oxygen and nitrogen containing variable humidity at room temperature has been investigated to estimate the chemical reaction during the exchange works.
Kanemura, Takuji; Kondo, Hiroo; Furukawa, Tomohiro; Hirakawa, Yasushi; Hoashi, Eiji*; Yoshihashi, Sachiko*; Horiike, Hiroshi*; Wakai, Eiichi
Fusion Engineering and Design, 98-99, p.1991 - 1997, 2015/10
Times Cited Count：14 Percentile：75.5(Nuclear Science & Technology)A high-speed (15 m/s) liquid lithium jet is planned to be utilized as the target of two 40 MeV - 125 mA deuteron beams in the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF). The target thickness is required to be maintained within 25 
1 mm under a vacuum condition of 10 Pa. This paper reports the result of measurements of the Li-target thickness under the IFMIF condition (Li speed of 10 to 20 m/s, vacuum pressure of 10 Pa, Li temperature of 250
C) in the EVEDA Li Test Loop. The target thickness was found to be 26.08 mm on average at the speed of 15 m/s at the center of the IFMIF beam footprint. As for temporal fluctuation, average and maximum amplitude at the same measurement position were 0.26 and 1.45 mm, respectively, and more than 99.7% of all amplitudes measured were within the design requirement. Therefore, it was found that the Li target fulfilled the required stability for IFMIF.
Wakai, Eiichi; Kikuchi, Takayuki; Kim, B.*; Kimura, Akihiko*; Nogami, Shuhei*; Hasegawa, Akira*; Nishimura, Arata*; Soldaini, M.*; Yamamoto, Michiyoshi*; Knaster, J.*
Fusion Engineering and Design, 98-99, p.2089 - 2093, 2015/10
Times Cited Count：16 Percentile：77.56(Nuclear Science & Technology)Ando, Masami; Nozawa, Takashi; Hirose, Takanori; Tanigawa, Hiroyasu; Wakai, Eiichi; Stoller, R. E.*; Myers, J.*
Fusion Science and Technology, 68(3), p.648 - 651, 2015/10
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：25.85(Nuclear Science & Technology)Pressurized tubes of F82H and B-doped F82H irradiated at 573 and 673 K up to 6dpa have been measured by a laser profilometer. The irradiation creep strain in F82H irradiated at 573 and 673 K was almost linearly dependent on the effective stress level for stresses below 260 MPa and 170 MPa, respectively. The creep strain of 
BN-F82H was similar to that of F82H IEA at each effective stress level except 294 MPa at 573 K irradiation. For 673 K irradiation, the creep strain of some BN-F82H tubes was larger than that of F82H tubes. It is suggested that a swelling caused in each BN-F82H because small helium babbles might be produced by a reaction of B(n, 
) 
Li.
Knaster, J.*; Ibarra, A.*; Ida, Mizuho*; Kondo, Keitaro; Kikuchi, Takayuki; Ohira, Shigeru; Sugimoto, Masayoshi; Wakai, Eiichi; Watanabe, Kazuhito; 58 of others*
Nuclear Fusion, 55(8), p.086003_1 - 086003_30, 2015/08
Times Cited Count：60 Percentile：95.24(Physics, Fluids & Plasmas)The International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF), presently in its Engineering Validation and Engineering Design Activities (EVEDA) phase under the frame of the Broader Approach Agreement between Europe and Japan, has accomplished in summer 2013, on schedule, its EDA phase with the release of the engineering design report of the IFMIF plant, which is here described. Many improvements of the design from former phases are implemented, particularly a reduction of beam losses and operational costs thanks to the superconducting accelerator concept. In the Test Cell design, the separation of the irradiation modules from the shielding block gaining irradiation flexibility and enhancement of the remote handling equipment reliability and cost reduction. The released IFMIF Intermediate Engineering Design Report, which could be complemented if required concurrently with the outcome of the on-going EVA carried out since the entry into force of IFMIF/EVEDA in June 2007, will allow the decision making on its construction and/or serve as the basis for the definition of the next step, aligned with the evolving needs of our fusion community.
Kondo, Hiroo; Kanemura, Takuji; Furukawa, Tomohiro; Hirakawa, Yasushi; Wakai, Eiichi
Proceedings of 23rd International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-23) (DVD-ROM), 8 Pages, 2015/05
A liquid-Li free-surface stream is to serve as a beam target (Li target) for the IFMIF. As a major activity for the Li target in the IFMIF/EVEDA, the EVEDA Li test loop (ELTL) was constructed. This study focuses on cavitation-like acoustic noise in a conduit downstream of the Li target. This noise was detected by using acoustic-emission sensors. The intensity of the noise was examined versus cavitation number of the Li target. In addition, a time-frequency analysis for the acoustic signal was performed to characterize the noise. The results are as follows: (1) the intensity of the noise was increased as decreasing the cavitation number; (2) the noise was at first intermittent in a larger cavitation number, subsequently the noise became continuous as decreasing the cavitation number; (3) the noise consisted of a number of a high frequency acoustic emission which occurred in a short duration. For these results, we conclude that cavitation occurred in the downstream conduit.
C waterIto, Yuzuru; Saito, Masahiro*; Abe, Katsunori*; Wakai, Eiichi
Journal of Plasma and Fusion Research SERIES, Vol.11, p.73 - 78, 2015/03
Crack growth is a one of the key mechanical properties for the design evaluation in fusion materials to be tested at the High Flux Test Module (HFTM) in IFMIF. In this study, crack growth rate of the F82H steel in the 288C water was investigated by using an almost standard size specimen in order to avoid the specimen size effect on the crack growth. It was found that the typical intergranular fracture surface could be obtained during the crack propagation even at room temperature. Chromium carbide, Cr
C
, precipitation along the grain boundaries in F82H steel may influence the intergranular fracture under the fatigue crack propagation at room temperature in air. The possible evidence of crack growth in the 288C water was also observed. The crack growth rate at 30 MPa ![$$sqrt[]{m}$$](/search/images/EROHG2LSORNV041NPUSA.gif)
in the 288C water was conservatively estimated to about 710
m/s. Further systematic study of crack growth, and the improvement of surface finishing against crack propagation are necessary for the design evaluation in fusion materials.
