Development of a dissolution method for analyzing the elemental composition of fuel debris using sodium peroxide fusion technique

Nakamura, Satoshi; Ishii, Sho*; Kato, Hitoshi*; Ban, Yasutoshi; Hiruta, Kenta; Yoshida, Takuya; Uehara, Hiroyuki; Obata, Hiroki; Kimura, Yasuhiko; Takano, Masahide

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 62(1), p.56 - 64, 2025/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2024.2381553

A dissolution method for analyzing the elemental composition of fuel debris using the sodium peroxide (NaO) fusion technique has been developed. Herein, two different types of simulated debris materials (such as solid solution of (Zr,RE)O and molten core-concrete interaction products (MCCI)) were taken. At various temperatures, these debris materials were subsequently fused with NaO in crucibles, which are made of different materials, such as Ni, AlO, Fe, and Zr. Then, the fused samples are dissolved in nitric acid. Furthermore, the effects of the experimental conditions on the elemental composition analysis were evaluated using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), which suggested the use of a Ni crucible at 923 K as an optimum testing condition. The optimum testing condition was then applied to the demonstration tests with Three Mile Island unit-2 (TMI-2) debris in a shielded concrete cell, thereby achieving complete dissolution of the debris. The elemental composition of TMI-2 debris revealed by the proposed dissolution method has good reproducibility and has an insignificant contradiction in the mass balance of the sample. Therefore, this newly developed reproducible dissolution method can be effectively utilized in practical applications by dissolving fuel debris and estimating its elemental composition.

Sm synchrotron-radiation-based Mssbauer and SR studies of SmRuGe

Tsutsui, Satoshi; Ito, Takashi; Nakamura, Jin*; Yoshida, Mio*; Kobayashi, Yoshio*; Yoda, Yoshitaka*; Nakamura, Jumpei*; Koda, Akihiro*; Higashinaka, Ryuji*; Aoki, Dai*; et al.

Interactions (Internet), 245(1), p.55_1 - 55_9, 2024/12

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10751-024-01900-6

Summary report in FY2022 of subsidy program for "the Project of Decommissioning and Contaminated Water Management (Development of Analysis and Estimation Technology for Characterization of Fuel Debris (Development of Technologies for Enhanced Analysis Accuracy, Thermal behavior Estimation, and Simplified Analysis of Fuel Debris)" started in FY2011

Koyama, Shinichi; Ikeuchi, Hirotomo; Mitsugi, Takeshi; Maeda, Koji; Sasaki, Shinji; Onishi, Takashi; Tsai, T.-H.; Takano, Masahide; Fukaya, Hiroyuki; Nakamura, Satoshi; et al.

Hairo, Osensui, Shorisui Taisaku Jigyo Jimukyoku Homu Peji (Internet), 216 Pages, 2023/11

https://en.dccc-program.jp/wp-content/uploads/20231117_JAEA.pdf

In FY 2021 and 2022, JAEA perfomed the subsidy program for "the Project of Decommissioning and Contaminated Water Management (Development of Analysis and Estimation Technology for Characterization of Fuel Debris (Development of Technologies for Enhanced Analysis Accuracy, Thermal Bahavior Estimation, and Simplified Analysis of Fuel Debris)" started in FY 2021. This presentation material summarized the results of the project, which will be available shortly on the website of Management Office for the Project of Decommissioning, Contaminated Water and Treated Water Management.

Oxygen interstitials make metastable titanium alloys strong and ductile

Chong, Y.*; Gholizadeh, R.*; Guo, B.*; Tsuru, Tomohito; Zhao, G.*; Yoshida, Shuhei*; Mitsuhara, Masatoshi*; Godfrey, A.*; Tsuji, Nobuhiro*

Acta Materialia, 257, p.119165_1 - 119165_14, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2023.119165

Metastable titanium alloys possess excellent strain-hardening capability, but suffer from a low yield strength. As a result, numerous attempts have been made to strengthen this important structural material in the last decade. Here, we explore the contributions of grain refinement and interstitial additions in raising the yield strength of a Ti-12Mo (wt.%) metastable titanium alloy. Surprisingly, rather than strengthening the material, grain refinement actually lowers the ultimate tensile strength in this alloy. This unexpected and anomalous behavior is attributed to a significant enhancement in strain-induced martensite phase transformation, where in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction analysis reveals, for the first time, that this phase is much softer than the parent phase. Instead, a combination of both oxygen addition and grain refinement is found to realize an unprecedented strength-ductility synergy in a Ti-12Mo-0.3O (wt.%) alloy. The advantageous effect of oxygen solutes in this ternary alloy is twofold. Firstly, solute oxygen largely suppresses strain-induced transformation to the martensite phase, even in a fine-grained microstructure, thus avoiding the softening effect of excessive amounts of martensite. Secondly, oxygen solutes readily segregate to twin boundaries, as revealed by atom probe tomography. This restricts the growth of deformation twins, thereby promoting more extensive twin nucleation, leading to enhanced microstructural refinement. The insights from our work provide a cost-effective rationale for the design of strong yet tough metastable titanium alloys, with significant implications for more widespread use of this high strength-to-weight structural material.

Level structures of Ca cast doubt on a doubly magic Ca

Chen, S.*; Browne, F.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Lee, J.*; Obertelli, A.*; Tsunoda, Yusuke*; Otsuka, Takaharu*; Chazono, Yoshiki*; Hagen, G.*; Holt, J. D.*; et al.

Physics Letters B, 843, p.138025_1 - 138025_7, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2023.138025

Gamma decays were observed in Ca and Ca following quasi-free one-proton knockout reactions from Sc. For Ca, a ray transition was measured to be 1456(12) keV, while for Ca an indication for a transition was observed at 1115(34) keV. Both transitions were tentatively assigned as the decays. A shell-model calculation in a wide model space with a marginally modified effective nucleon-nucleon interaction depicts excellent agreement with experiment for level energies, two-neutron separation energies, and reaction cross sections, corroborating the formation of a new nuclear shell above the N = 34 shell. Its constituents, the and orbitals, are almost degenerate. This degeneracy precludes the possibility for a doubly magic Ca and potentially drives the dripline of Ca isotopes to Ca or even beyond.

Multiple mechanisms in proton-induced nucleon removal at 100 MeV/nucleon

Pohl, T.*; Sun, Y. L.*; Obertelli, A.*; Lee, J.*; Gmez-Ramos, M.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Cai, B. S.*; Yuan, C. X.*; Brown, B. A.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 130(17), p.172501_1 - 172501_8, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.172501

We report on the first proton-induced single proton- and neutron-removal reactions from the neutron deficient O nucleus with large Fermi-surface asymmetry at 100 MeV/nucleon. Our results provide the first quantitative contributions of multiple reaction mechanisms including the quasifree knockout, inelastic scattering, and nucleon transfer processes. It is shown that the inelastic scattering and nucleon transfer, usually neglected at such energy regime, contribute about 50% and 30% to the loosely bound proton and deeply bound neutron removal, respectively.

"Southwestern" boundary of the island of inversion; First study of low-lying bound excited states in V and V

Elekes, Z.*; Juhsz, M. M.*; Sohler, D.*; Sieja, K.*; Yoshida, Kazuki; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Achouri, N. L.*; Baba, Hidetada*; et al.

Physical Review C, 106(6), p.064321_1 - 064321_10, 2022/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.106.064321

The low-lying level structure of V and V was investigated for the first time. The neutron knockout reaction and inelastic proton scattering were applied for V while the neutron knock-out reaction provided the data for V. Four and five new transitions were determined for V and V, respectively. Based on the comparison to our shell-model calculations using the Lenzi-Nowacki-Poves-Sieja (LNPS) interaction, three of the observed rays for each isotope could be placed in the level scheme and assigned to the decay of the first 11/2 and 9/2 levels. The (,) excitation cross sections for V were analyzed by the coupled-channels formalism assuming quadrupole plus hexadecapole deformations. Due to the role of the hexadecapole deformation, V could not be unambiguously placed on the island of inversion.

The Muon linac project at J-PARC

Kondo, Yasuhiro; Kitamura, Ryo; Fuwa, Yasuhiro; Morishita, Takatoshi; Moriya, Katsuhiro; Takayanagi, Tomohiro; Otani, Masashi*; Cicek, E.*; Ego, Hiroyasu*; Fukao, Yoshinori*; et al.

Proceedings of 31st International Linear Accelerator Conference (LINAC 2022) (Internet), p.636 - 641, 2022/09

https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-LINAC2022-WE1AA05

The muon linac project for the precise measurement of the muon anomalous magnetic and electric dipole moments, which is currently one of the hottest issues of the elementary particle physics, is in progress at J-PARC. The muons from the J-PARC muon facility are once cooled to room temperature, then accelerated up to 212 MeV with a normalized emittance of 1.5 mm mrad and a momentum spread of 0.1%. Four types of accelerating structures are adopted to obtain the efficient acceleration with a wide beta range from 0.01 to 0.94. The project is moving into the construction phase. We already demonstrated the re-acceleration scheme of the decelerated muons using a 324-MHz RFQ in 2017. The high-power test of the 324-MHz Interdigital H-mode (IH) DTL using a prototype cavity was performed in 2021. The fabrication of the first module of 14 modules of the 1296-MHz Disk and Washer (DAW) CCL will be done to confirm the production process. Moreover, the final design of the travelling wave accelerating structure for the high beta region is also proceeding. In this paper, the recent progress toward the realization of the world first muon linac will be presented.

Report on false alarms with automatic fire alarm in JAEA; Examination for false alarms reduction

Sakashita, Satoshi; Okui, Masahiro; Yoshida, Tadayoshi; Uezu, Yasuhiro; Okuda, Eiichi

JAEA-Review 2022-012, 42 Pages, 2022/06

JAEA-Review-2022-012.pdf:2.96MB

In this report, results of investigating fire alarm detectors status in order to understand the actual situation of false alarm occurrence and measures to systematically update of them. Based on results of this investigation, measures to systematically update of detectors were taken in order to reduce false fire alarm reports in a harsh environment and aged detectors. Numbers of detectors, false alarms were investigated. Furthermore, causes of their occurrence were investigated for three years (2018-2020). As a result of this investigation, it was found that most of the 34,400 fire alarm detectors in JAEA have been used for more than 20 years. In the last 3 years, 65 false alarms have been reported, 60% of which were found to have been used where the environment should be improved. It was also found that there are many cases where false alarms are reported from a detector within 14 years after installation. Based on the above, three basic policies were formulated. First of all, database will be built for fire alarm maintenance and inspection, secondly, installation location of fire alarm will be improved, and finally, detectors will be updated with reference to the manufacture's plan. According to the three basic policies, it is considered that the reports of false fire alarms will be able to reduced.

A First glimpse at the shell structure beyond Ca; Spectroscopy of K, Ca, and Ca

Koiwai, Takuma*; Wimmer, K.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Obertelli, A.*; Barbieri, C.*; Duguet, T.*; Holt, J. D.*; Miyagi, Takayuki*; Navrtil, P.*; Ogata, Kazuyuki*; et al.

Physics Letters B, 827, p.136953_1 - 136953_7, 2022/04

AA2021-0775.pdf:0.62MB

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2022.136953

no abstracts in English