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Yokoyama, Keisuke; Watanabe, Masashi; Onishi, Takashi; Yano, Yasuhide; Tokoro, Daishiro*; Sugata, Hiromasa*; Kato, Masato*
JAEA-Research 2025-002, 18 Pages, 2025/05
It is advocated as a development target of fast reactors (FRs) to allow for the of use of mixed oxide (MOX) fuels containing minor actinide (MA) separated and recovered from spent fuels with the aim of reducing the volume and toxicity of high-level radioactive waste generated from nuclear reactors. In the development of MAMOX fuels, it is important behavior to understand the thermal properties such as thermal conductivity for fuel design and analysis of the irradiation. However, there are only a few reports on the thermal properties of MA-MOX fuels, and neither the effects of MA contents nor of oxygen non-stoichiometry in MOX fuels on their thermal conductivities have been fully understood. In this study, the thermal conductivities of MOX fuels with up to 15% Am content were measured at near-stoichiometric composition and the relationship between thermal conductivity and Am content was evaluated. Moreover, the thermal conductivities of Am-doped UO fuels were also measured and evaluated by comparison with Am-MOX to evaluate the effect of Am content. The fuel samples used in this study were three types of MOX with a Pu content of 30% and different Am contents (5%, 10%, and 15%), and UO
containing 15% Am. The thermal conductivities of specimens were calculated from the thermal diffusivities measured by the laser flash method, the density of the specimens and, the heat capacity at constant pressure. The oxygen partial pressure during the measurement was controlled at that of the targeted near-stoichiometric composition. The thermal conductivities of all specimens exhibited a decline with increasing temperature and Am content, with a particularly pronounced reduction observed below 1,173 K. The results of the classical phonon scattering model analysis of the measured thermal conductivities showed that the effect of lattice strain due to the Am addition was significant on the thermal resistivity change, and the effect was comparable for both MOX and UO
.
Yokoyama, Keisuke; Watanabe, Masashi; Usui, Akane; Seki, Takayuki*; Onishi, Takashi; Kato, Masato
Nuclear Materials and Energy (Internet), 42, p.101908_1 - 101908_6, 2025/03
Times Cited Count:0 Percentile:0.00(Nuclear Science & Technology)Oxygen potential of high Am content MOX, (UPu
Am
)O
, was measured at 1273 K, 1473 K, 1573 K, and 1623 K. by gas equilibrium method using thermogravimeter. Comparing the measured data with the literature data, it was found that the addition of 15% Am increases the oxygen potential of (U, Pu)O
by 100-150 kJ/mol for the same Pu content and O/M ratio. The proportion of cations in the stoichiometric composition was determined as (U
U
Pu
Am
)O
, assuming the presence of Am
and partial oxidation of U
to U
. The relationship between oxygen partial pressure and deviation x from stoichiometry in (U
Pu
Am
)O
was analyzed by defect chemistry model. The equation to represent the O/M ratio was derived as a function of temperature and oxygen partial pressure. A part of this study includes the results of MEXT Innovative Nuclear Research and Development Program Grant Number JPMXD0219214921.
Adachi, Tadashi*; Ogawa, Taiki*; Komiyama, Yota*; Sumura, Takuya*; Saito-Tsuboi, Yuki*; Takeuchi, Takaaki*; Mano, Kohei*; Manabe, Kaoru*; Kawabata, Koki*; Imazu, Tsuyoshi*; et al.
Physical Review B, 111(10), p.L100508_1 - L100508_6, 2025/03
Times Cited Count:0 Percentile:0.00(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)Onishi, Takashi; Koyama, Shinichi*; Yokoyama, Keisuke; Morishita, Kazuki; Watanabe, Masashi; Maeda, Shigetaka; Yano, Yasuhide; Oki, Shigeo
Nuclear Engineering and Design, 432, p.113755_1 - 113755_17, 2025/02
Times Cited Count:0 Percentile:0.00(Nuclear Science & Technology)Kato, Hiroyuki S.*; Muroyama, Mizuho*; Kobayakawa, Nano*; Muneyasu, Riku*; Tsuda, Yasutaka; Murase, Natsumi*; Watanabe, Seiya*; Yamada, Takashi*; Kanematsu, Yusuke*; Tachikawa, Masanori*; et al.
Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (Internet), 15(43), p.10769 - 10776, 2024/10
Times Cited Count:1 Percentile:42.16(Chemistry, Physical)Nemoto, Takahiro; Fujiwara, Yusuke; Arakawa, Ryoki; Choyama, Yuya; Nagasumi, Satoru; Hasegawa, Toshinari; Yokoyama, Keisuke; Watanabe, Masashi; Onishi, Takashi; Kawamoto, Taiki; et al.
JAEA-Technology 2024-003, 17 Pages, 2024/06
In order to investigate the cause of the increase in differential pressure in the primary helium circulator filter that occurred during the RS-14 cycle, a clogged filter was investigated. As a result of the investigation, deposits caused by silicone oil were confirmed on the surface of the filter element. These results revealed that the cause of filter clogging was silicone oil mixed into the primary system due to performance deterioration of the charcoal filter in the gas circulator of primary helium purification system. As a measure to prevent the recurrence of this event, in addition to the conventional management based on operating hours for replacing of charcoal filter in the gas circulator of primary helium purification system, we have established a new replacement plan for every three years.
Yuguchi, Takashi*; Kato, Takenori*; Ogita, Yasuhiro; Watanabe, Minori*; Yamazaki, Hayato*; Kato, Asuka*; Ito, Daichi*; Yokoyama, Tatsunori; Sakata, Shuhei*; Ono, Takeshi*
Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 265, p.106091_1 - 106091_13, 2024/04
Times Cited Count:1 Percentile:42.40(Geosciences, Multidisciplinary)Yamazaki, Shun*; Kaneko, Naoya*; Kato, Atsuya*; Watanabe, Kohei*; Aoki, Daisuke*; Taniguchi, Tatsuo*; Karatsu, Takashi*; Ueda, Yuki; Motokawa, Ryuhei; Okura, Koki*; et al.
Polymer, 298, p.126846_1 - 126846_11, 2024/04
Times Cited Count:4 Percentile:70.06(Polymer Science)Yamauchi, Hiroki; Sari, D. P.*; Yasui, Yukio*; Sakakura, Terutoshi*; Kimura, Hiroyuki*; Nakao, Akiko*; Ohara, Takashi; Honda, Takashi*; Kodama, Katsuaki; Igawa, Naoki; et al.
Physical Review Research (Internet), 6(1), p.013144_1 - 013144_9, 2024/02
Matsuno, Takashi*; Fujita, Taiki*; Matsuda, Tomoko*; Shibayama, Yuki; Hojo, Tomohiko*; Watanabe, Ikumu*
Journal of Materials Processing Technology, 322, p.118174_1 - 118174_16, 2023/12
Times Cited Count:8 Percentile:66.71(Engineering, Industrial)The impact of high stress triaxiality on work hardening in transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) steel has been widely acknowledged, particularly through measurements of the austenite fraction. Understanding this TRIP behavior is crucial for predicting material fracture in press-forming processes. However, the actual flow stresses under high-stress-triaxiality conditions remain largely undetermined. To address this gap, we developed a new tensile testing method using tiny notched round bars to investigate stress-triaxiality-induced work hardening in TRIP steels. The specimens were analyzed using two-dimensional micrometry to allow finite element analyses to identify the flow stress. Additionally, we conducted in situ tensile tests in which their crystal lattice stresses were monitored using synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) to realize mechanism analyses of the unexpected work-hardening behavior identified by the developed tensile testing method. Our combined approach revealed a mutual, unstable increase in the flow stress and stress triaxiality in the TRIP-aided bainitic ferrite steel, which reduced the hardening exponent coefficients and thus induced a higher stress triaxiality. In contrast, the TRIP-aided martensitic steel exhibited a weakening behavior, characterized by a significant decrease in the hardening exponent coefficients in the case of the sharpest notch. XRD analyses showed that microstructural heterogeneity led to an extraordinarily high hydrostatic stress in the austenite phase, accounting for these contrasting behaviors. This finding challenges the established consensus on TRIP steels and suggests the need for a revised framework for their application in press-forming, taking into account stress-triaxiality conditions.
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.
Nemoto, Takahiro; Arakawa, Ryoki; Kawakami, Satoru; Nagasumi, Satoru; Yokoyama, Keisuke; Watanabe, Masashi; Onishi, Takashi; Kawamoto, Taiki; Furusawa, Takayuki; Inoi, Hiroyuki; et al.
JAEA-Technology 2023-005, 33 Pages, 2023/05
During shut down of the HTTR (High Temperature engineering Test Reactor) RS-14 cycle, an increasing trend of filter differential pressure for the helium gas circulator was observed. In order to investigate this phenomenon, the blower of the primary helium purification system was disassembled and inspected. As a result, it is clear that the silicon oil mist entered into the primary coolant due to the deterioration of the charcoal filter performance. The replacement and further investigation of the filter are planning to prevent the reoccurrence of the same phenomenon in the future.
Katata, Genki*; Yamaguchi, Takashi*; Watanabe, Makoto*; Fukushima, Keitaro*; Nakayama, Masataka*; Nagano, Hirohiko*; Koarashi, Jun; Tateno, Ryunosuke*; Kubota, Tomohiro
Atmospheric Environment, 298, p.119640_1 - 119640_12, 2023/04
Times Cited Count:1 Percentile:13.75(Environmental Sciences)Arai, Tomohiro*; Murata, Sho*; Watanabe, Yuichi*; Ishihara, Toshihiro*; Fukamizu, Yoshiya*; Takeda, Satoshi*; Ebata, Kiyokadzu*; Watanabe, Yuki; Takashima, Yoshio*; Kaneko, Junichi*
Journal of X-Ray Science and Technology, 31(2), p.237 - 245, 2023/03
Times Cited Count:0 Percentile:0.00(Instruments & Instrumentation)Radiological technologists have received specialized education about radiation and serve as risk communicators who aim to lessen patients' anxiety about radiation exposure, in addition to performing radiological examinations in routine clinical practice. Also, Radiological technologists across Japan were dispatched to the affected area to conduct an essential procedure-screening the belongings and body surfaces of evacuees for contamination at the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company in March 2011. In this study, we conducted a fact-finding survey on knowledge and awareness of radiation disasters among radiological technologists at National Hospital Organization facilities in Japan to reveal their literacy and competencies regarding radiation disasters. Also, we compared the knowledge and awareness of radiation disasters among Japanese radiological technologists between nuclear power station areas and non-nuclear power station areas and discuss ideal human resource development for radiological technologists to be ready to serve during a radiation disaster.
Do, V. K.; Furuse, Takahiro; Ota, Yuki; Iwahashi, Hiroyuki; Hirosawa, Takashi; Watanabe, Masahisa; Sato, Soichi
Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 331(12), p.5631 - 5640, 2022/12
Times Cited Count:5 Percentile:53.26(Chemistry, Analytical)Sn is one of the long-lived fission products that might have been released into the environment after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011. The presence of radionuclides must be monitored for the proper treatment of wastes obtained from decommissioning accident-related nuclear facilities and the surrounding environment. In the work, we propose a reliable method for verifying the presence of
Sn in construction materials by combining the HCl-free solid phase extraction on TEVA resin and a selective measurement by inductively coupled plasma tandem mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS). The method has been optimized and characterized step by step. More than 95% of chemical recovery was achieved for Sn from typical concrete matrixes. The interference caused by an isobar
Te and possible polyatomic interferences from matrixes were effectively suppressed by the developed chemical separation and the tandem MS/MS configuration. The total decontamination factor for the Te interference was of the order of 10
. The estimated method detection limit for
Sn in concrete as measured at m/z = 160 was 12.1 pg g
, which is equivalent to 6.1 mBq g
.
Hirayama, Shintaro*; Sato, Koichi*; Kato, Daiji*; Iwakiri, Hirotomo*; Yamaguchi, Masatake; Watanabe, Yoshiyuki*; Nozawa, Takashi*
Nuclear Materials and Energy (Internet), 31, p.101179_1 - 101179_9, 2022/06
Times Cited Count:6 Percentile:68.73(Nuclear Science & Technology)no abstracts in English
Uchiyama, Yusuke*; Tokunaga, Natsuki*; Azuma, Kohei*; Kamidaira, Yuki; Tsumune, Daisuke*; Iwasaki, Toshiki*; Yamada, Masatoshi*; Tateda, Yutaka*; Ishimaru, Takashi*; Ito, Yukari*; et al.
Science of the Total Environment, 816, p.151573_1 - 151573_13, 2022/04
Times Cited Count:10 Percentile:61.04(Environmental Sciences)no abstracts in English
Kosaka, Wataru; Uchibori, Akihiro; Takata, Takashi; Yanagisawa, Hideki*; Watanabe, Akira*; Jang, S.*
Proceedings of 19th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-19) (Internet), 11 Pages, 2022/03
For the safety assessment of a steam generator (SG) in a sodium-cooled fast reactor, the analysis code LEAP-III can evaluate the water leak rate during the long-term event progress including the tube failure propagation triggered by an occurrence of a small water leak in a failed heat transfer tube in SG. The LEAP-III has the advantage in completing the calculation with low computational cost since it consists of semi-empirical formulae and one-dimensional equations of conservation. However, an evaluation model of temperature distribution by the reacting jet provides wider high temperature region than the experimental data. As a result, LEAP-III shows excessive conservativeness in some case. A Lagrangian particle method code based on engineering approaches has been developed in order to improve this model to get more realistic temperature distribution. In this method, the jet behavior and chemical reaction are simulated using Newton's equation of motion with several engineering approximations instead of solving multi-dimension multiphase thermal hydraulic equations with sodium-water reaction. In this study, interparticle interaction force model was added, and also the chemical reaction and gas-liquid heat transfer evaluation models were improved. We conducted a test analysis, and compared the results by this particle method with the ones by SERAPHIM, that is a mechanistic analysis code for multi-dimensional multiphase flow considering compressibility and sodium-water reaction. Through this test analysis, it confirmed that this particle method has the basic capability to get a realistic temperature distribution with low computational cost, and also to predict tube failure occurrence by coupled with LEAP-III.
Uchibori, Akihiro; Shiina, Yoshimi*; Watanabe, Akira*; Takata, Takashi*
Proceedings of 19th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-19) (Internet), 12 Pages, 2022/03
An unstructured mesh-based analysis method has been integrated into the sodium-water reaction analysis code, SERAPHIM, in our recent studies. In this study, numerical analysis of an experiment on sodium-water reaction in a tube bundle domain was performed to investigate the effect of the unstructured mesh. The unrealistic behavior appeared in the coarse structured mesh was improved by the unstructured mesh. The numerical result in the case of the unstructured mesh reproduced the peak value of the temperature in the reacting flow.
Kusano, Kanya*; Ichimoto, Kiyoshi*; Ishii, Mamoru*; Miyoshi, Yoshizumi*; Yoden, Shigeo*; Akiyoshi, Hideharu*; Asai, Ayumi*; Ebihara, Yusuke*; Fujiwara, Hitoshi*; Goto, Tadanori*; et al.
Earth, Planets and Space (Internet), 73(1), p.159_1 - 159_29, 2021/12
Times Cited Count:7 Percentile:39.36(Geosciences, Multidisciplinary)The PSTEP is a nationwide research collaboration in Japan and was conducted from April 2015 to March 2020, supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. It has made a significant progress in space weather research and operational forecasts, publishing over 500 refereed journal papers and organizing four international symposiums, various workshops and seminars, and summer school for graduate students at Rikubetsu in 2017. This paper is a summary report of the PSTEP and describes the major research achievements it produced.