Study on criticality safety control of fuel debris for validation of methodology applied to the safety regulation

Suyama, Kenya; Ueki, Taro; Gunji, Satoshi; Watanabe, Tomoaki; Araki, Shohei; Fukuda, Kodai; Yamane, Yuichi; Izawa, Kazuhiko; Nagaya, Yasunobu; Kikuchi, Takeo; et al.

Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC2023) (Internet), 6 Pages, 2023/10

To remove and store safely the fuel debris generated by the severe accident of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011 is one of the most important and challenging topics for decommissioning of the damaged reactors in Fukushima. To validate the adopted method for the evaluation of criticality safety control of the fuel debris through comparison with the experimental data obtained by the criticality experiments, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) of Japan funds a research and development project which was entrusted to the Nuclear Safety Research Center (NSRC) of Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) from 2014. In this project, JAEA has been conducting such activities as i) comprehensive computation of the criticality characteristics of the fuel debris and making database (criticality map of the fuel debris), ii) development of new continuous energy Monte Carlo code, iii) evaluation of criticality accident and iv) modification of the critical assembly STACY for the experiments for validation of criticality safety control methodology. After the last ICNC2019, the project has the substantial progress in the modification of STACY which will start officially operation from May 2024 and the development of the Monte Carlo Code "Solomon" suitable for the criticality calculation for materials having spatially random distribution complies with the power spectrum. We present the whole picture of this research and development project and status of each technical topics in the session.

Development of nondestructive elemental analysis system for Hayabusa2 samples using muonic X-rays

Osawa, Takahito; Nagasawa, Shunsaku*; Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Takahashi, Tadayuki*; Nakamura, Tomoki*; Wada, Taiga*; Taniguchi, Akihiro*; Umegaki, Izumi*; Kubo, Kenya*; Terada, Kentaro*; et al.

ACS Earth and Space Chemistry (Internet), 7(4), p.699 - 711, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.2c00303

The concentrations of carbon and other major elements in asteroid samples provide very important information on the birth of life on the Earth and the solar-system evolution. Elemental analysis using muonic X-rays is one of the best analytical methods to determine the elemental composition of solid materials, and notably, is the only method to determine the concentration of light elements in bulk samples in a non-destructive manner. We developed a new analysis system using muonic X-rays to measure the concentrations of carbon and other major elements in precious and expectedly tiny samples recovered from the asteroid Ryugu by spacecraft Hayabusa2. Here we report the development process of the system in 4 stages and their system configurations, The analysis system is composed of a stainless-steel analysis chamber, an acrylic glove box for manipulating asteroid samples in a clean environment, and Ge semiconductor detectors arranged to surround the analysis chamber. The performance of the analysis system, including the background level, which is crucial for the measurement, was greatly improved from the first stage to the later ones. Our feasibility study showed that the latest model of our muonic X-ray analysis system is capable of determining the carbon concentration in Hayabusa2's sample model with an uncertainty of less than 10 percent in a 6-day measurement.

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.

Dynamical response of transition-edge sensor microcalorimeters to a pulsed charged-particle beam

Okumura, Takuma*; Azuma, Toshiyuki*; Bennet, D. A.*; Caradonna, P.*; Chiu, I.-H.*; Doriese, W. B.*; Durkin, M. S.*; Fowler, J. W.*; Gard, J. D.*; Hashimoto, Tadashi; et al.

IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 31(5), p.2101704_1 - 2101704_4, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2021.3067793

A superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) microcalorimeter is an ideal X-ray detector for experiments at accelerator facilities because of good energy resolution and high efficiency. To study the performance of the TES detector with a high-intensity pulsed charged-particle beam, we measured X-ray spectra with a pulsed muon beam at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) in Japan. We found substantial temporal shifts of the X-ray energy correlated with the arrival time of the pulsed muon beam, which was reasonably explained by pulse pileup due to the incidence of energetic particles from the initial pulsed beam.

Data of radon measurement in underground facilities of Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory

Aoki, Katsunori; Yamanaka, Hiroki*; Watanabe, Kazuhiko*; Sugihara, Kozo

JAEA-Data/Code 2020-018, 45 Pages, 2021/02

JAEA-Data-Code-2020-018.pdf:4.54MB
JAEA-Data-Code-2020-018-appendix(DVD-ROM).zip:6.8MB

Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory (MIU) Project is pursued by Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in the crystalline host rock (granite) as a part of geoscientific study of JAEA, and underground facilities of MIU are constructed down to 500m blow the ground surface. As small amount of Uranium is normally contained in granite, high concentration of radon is sometimes detected in the air of the underground facilities constructed in granitic rocks depending on their ventilation conditions. Radon concentrations in underground facilities of MIU have been measured according to the excavation progress of underground facilities or the change of ventilation system. It is recognized that the data obtained by the actual measurement of radon concentration in such underground facilities are rare and valuable. This repot summarizes the measured data from fiscal 2010 to fiscal 2020, together with the information of ventilation conditions and air temperature which affect radon concentrations in underground facilities. The variation of the equilibrium factors of radon is also examined with the actually measured data. As a result, it has been found that radon concentration in the drift is high in summer and low in winter according to the natural ventilation caused by the seasonal temperature difference between in and out of the underground facilities. Furthermore, the temporary increase in the equilibrium factor of radon in the drift at the start of ventilation is supposed to be due to the aerosol increase by the ventilation flow, such as the dust blown up.

Result of seismic motion observation from ground surface to 500m depth at Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory and its detailed analysis

Matsui, Hiroya; Watanabe, Kazuhiko*; Mikake, Shinichiro; Niimi, Katsuyuki*; Kobayashi, Shinji*; Toguri, Satohito*

Dai-47-Kai Gamban Rikigaku Ni Kansuru Shimpojiumu Koenshu (Internet), p.293 - 298, 2020/01

Japan Atomic Energy Agency has been observed seismic motions induced by earthquakes, at ground surface, galleries at 100m, 300m and 500m depth of Mizunami underground research laboratory for over 10 years. The results suggested that the amplitude of the seismic motion decreases with depth as the previous study on crystalline rock at Kamaishi mine indicated. Detailed analysis on the observed seismic motions shows that the Fourier amplitude and the phase difference of the earthquake occurred near epicenter correspond with the one calculated by one-dimensional multiple reflection theory.

Present status of personnel protection system at J-PARC

Kikuzawa, Nobuhiro; Niki, Kazuaki*; Yamamoto, Noboru*; Hayashi, Naoki; Adachi, Masatoshi*; Watanabe, Kazuhiko*

Proceedings of 16th Annual Meeting of Particle Accelerator Society of Japan (Internet), p.877 - 880, 2019/07

https://www.pasj.jp/web_publish/pasj2019/proceedings/index.html

Interlock system of J-PARC is classified into a personnel protection system (PPS) for human safety and a machine protection system (MPS) for protecting equipment. The PPS of the J-PARC accelerator started from the operation at Linac in 2006 and was completed by the MR operation in 2008. In the next 10 years, some improvements have been made, such as updating video monitoring systems and establishing new interlocks. In addition to describing recent operations including these updatings, this paper reports the current status of inspections and maintenance conducted to maintain and improve reliability.

Supervision and alarm system for J-PARC Linac and RCS

Takahashi, Hiroki; Sawabe, Yuki; Watanabe, Kazuhiko*; Kawase, Masato*

Proceedings of 14th Annual Meeting of Particle Accelerator Society of Japan (Internet), p.1151 - 1154, 2017/12

http://www.pasj.jp/web_publish/pasj2017/proceedings/PDF/WEP1/WEP102.pdf

The amount of monitor value tends to increase, because of the increase of accelerator components, or in order to realize the safety and the stable operation. Then, an enormous volume of operation data increases the possibility of occurrence of erroneous operation such as overlooking of monitor value and etc. Then, we started to develop a system to supervise the state of the accelerator and to inform operators of abnormality early. As an initial system, we developed a system to supervise the status of Linac DTQ power supplies and etc. In this initial system, first, the function was created to make the normal range (upper and lower limit values) with reference to the current setting value. Next, the function to inform the alarm condition when the monitor value becomes outside of the normal range was realized. This function is an important function in the initial system. By this realization, we obtained the prospect of development of supervision and alarm system.

Simultaneous analysis of silicon and boron dissolved in water by combination of electrodialytic salt removal and ion-exclusion chromatography with corona charged aerosol detection

Mori, Masanobu*; Sagara, Katsuya*; Arai, Kaori*; Nakatani, Nobutake*; Ohira, Shinichi*; Toda, Kei*; Itabashi, Hideyuki*; Kozaki, Daisuke*; Sugo, Yumi; Watanabe, Shigeki; et al.

Journal of Chromatography A, 1431, p.131 - 137, 2016/01

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chroma.2015.12.064

Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory Project; Compilation of results of geological investigation at the -500m stage

Kawamoto, Koji; Murakami, Hiroaki; Ishibashi, Masayuki; Sasao, Eiji; Watanabe, Kazuhiko; Mikake, Shinichiro; Ikeda, Koki

JAEA-Data/Code 2014-014, 27 Pages, 2014/08

JAEA-Data-Code-2014-014.pdf:24.28MB
JAEA-Data-Code-2014-014-appendix(CD-ROM).zip:92.23MB

This document presents the data of geological investigations at the -500m stage of the MIU from the 2011 fiscal year to the 2013 fiscal year. At the -500m stage of the MIU, although the Cretaceous Toki granite is distributed, pegmatite, aplite and lampropyre dike are distributed partially.