Influences of the ZrC coating process and heat treatment on ZrC-coated kernels used as fuel in Pu-burner high temperature gas-cooled reactor in Japan

Aihara, Jun; Ueta, Shohei; Honda, Masaki*; Mizuta, Naoki; Goto, Minoru; Tachibana, Yukio; Okamoto, Koji*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(1), p.107 - 116, 2021/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1806137

The concept of a Pu-burner high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) has been proposed for purpose of more safely reducing amount of recovered Pu. This concept employs coated fuel particles (CFPs) with ZrC coated PuO-YSZ kernel and with tristructural (TRISO) coating for very high Pu burn-up and high nuclear proliferation resistance. In this report, we investigate the microstructure of the region that includes the surface of an as-fabricated CeO-YSZ kernel simulating PuO-YSZ kernel. We found both Zr-rich grains and Ce-rich grains to be densely distributed in that region including surface of CeO-YSZ kernel. On the other hand, it has been reported that there was a porous region near surface of the CeO-YSZ kernel of Batch I. This finding confirms that Ce-rich grains near surface of CeO-YSZ kernels coated with ZrC layers have been corroded during the deposition of the ZrC layer, whereas the Zr-rich grains were hardly affected.

Evaluation of tritium release into primary coolant for research and testing reactors

Kenzhina, I.*; Ishitsuka, Etsuo; Okumura, Keisuke; Ho, H. Q.; Takemoto, Noriyuki; Chikhray, Y.*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(1), p.1 - 8, 2021/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1791760

The sources and mechanisms for the tritium release into the primary coolant in the JMTR and the JRR-3M containing beryllium reflectors are evaluated. It is found that the recoil release from chain reaction of Be is dominant and its calculation results agree well with trends derived from the measured variation of tritium concentration in the primary coolant. It also indicates that the simple calculation method used in this study for the tritium recoil release from the beryllium reflectors can be utilized for an estimation of the tritium release into the primary coolant for a research and testing reactors containing beryllium reflectors.

Derivation of ideal power distribution to minimize the maximum kernel migration rate for nuclear design of pin-in-block type HTGR

Okita, Shoichiro; Fukaya, Yuji; Goto, Minoru

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(1), p.9 - 16, 2021/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1791762

Suppressing the kernel migration rates, which depend on both the fuel temperature and the fuel temperature gradient, under normal operation condition is quite important from the viewpoint of the fuel integrity for High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors. The presence of the ideal axial power distribution to minimize the maximum kernel migration rate allows us to improve efficiency of design work. Therefore, we propose a new method based on Lagrange multiplier method in consideration of thermohydraulic design in order to obtain the ideal axial power distribution to minimize the maximum kernel migration rate. For one of the existing conceptual designs performed by JAEA, the maximum kernel migration rate for the power distribution to minimize the maximum kernel migration rate proposed in this study is lower by approximately 10% than that for the power distribution as a conventional design target to minimize the maximum fuel temperature.

Experimental study on transport behavior of cesium iodide in the reactor coolant system under LWR severe accident conditions

Miyahara, Naoya; Miwa, Shuhei; Goullo, M.*; Imoto, Jumpei; Horiguchi, Naoki; Sato, Isamu*; Osaka, Masahiko

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(12), p.1287 - 1296, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1782281

In order to clarify the cesium iodide (CsI) transport behavior with a focus on the mechanisms of gaseous iodine formation in the reactor coolant system of LWR under a severe accident condition, a reproductive experiment of CsI transport behavior was conducted using a facility equipped with a thermal gradient tube. Various analyses on deposits and airborne materials during transportation could elucidate two mechanisms for the gaseous iodine formation. One was the gaseous phase chemical reaction in Cs-I-O-H system at relatively high-temperature region, which led to gaseous iodine transport to the lower temperature region without any further changes in gas species due to the kinetics limitation effects. The other one was the chemical reactions related to condensed phase of CsI, namely those of CsI deposits on walls with surface of stainless steel to form CsCrO compound and CsI aerosol particles with steam, which were newly found in this study.

Voltage drop analysis and leakage suppression design for mineral-insulated cables

Hirota, Noriaki; Shibata, Hiroshi; Takeuchi, Tomoaki; Otsuka, Noriaki; Tsuchiya, Kunihiko

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(12), p.1276 - 1286, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1782280

The influence of materials of mineral-insulated (MI) cables on their electrical characteristics upon exposure to high-temperature conditions was examined via a transmission test, in the objective of achieving the stability of the potential distribution along the cable length. Occurrence of a voltage drop along the cable was confirmed for aluminum oxide (AlO) and magnesium oxide (MgO), as insulating materials of the MI cable. A finite-element method (FEM)-based analysis was performed to evaluate the leakage in the potentials, which was found at the terminal end. Voltage drop yields by the transmission test and the analysis were in good agreement for the MI cable of AlO and MgO materials, which suggests the reproducibility of the magnitude relationship of the experimental results via the FEM analysis. To suppress the voltage drop, the same FEM analysis was conducted, the diameter of the core wires () and the distance between them () were varied. Considering the variation of , the potential distribution in the MI cable produced a minimum voltage drop corresponding to a ratio of 0.35, obtained by dividing with that of the insulating material (). In case of varying , a minimum voltage drop was l/ of 0.5.

Flexible fuel cycle system for the effective management of plutonium

Fukasawa, Tetsuo*; Hoshino, Kuniyoshi*; Yamashita, Junichi*; Takano, Masahide

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(11), p.1215 - 1222, 2020/11

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1779144

The flexible fuel cycle initiative system (FFCI system) has been developed to reduce spent fuel (SF) amounts, to keep high availability factor for the reprocessing plant and to increase the proliferation resistance for the recovered Pu. The system separates most U from the SF at first, and the residual material called recycle material (RM) which contains Pu, minor actinides, fission products and remaining U will go to Pu(+U) recovery from the RM for Pu utilizing reactor in future. The Pu utilizing reactor is FBR or LWR with MOX fuel. The RM is the buffer material between SF reprocessing and Pu utilizing reactor with compact size and high proliferation resistance, which can suppress the amount of relatively pure Pu. The innovative technologies of FFCI are most U separation and temporary RM storage. They are investigated by the literature survey, fundamental experiments using simulated material and analyses using simulation code. This paper summarizes the feasibility confirmation results of FFCI.

Measurement of displacement cross-sections of copper and iron for proton with kinetic energies in the range 0.4 - 3 GeV

Matsuda, Hiroki; Meigo, Shinichiro; Iwamoto, Yosuke; Yoshida, Makoto*; Hasegawa, Shoichi; Maekawa, Fujio; Iwamoto, Hiroki; Nakamoto, Tatsushi*; Ishida, Taku*; Makimura, Shunsuke*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(10), p.1141 - 1151, 2020/10

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1771453

To estimate the structural damages of materials in accelerator facilities, displacement per atom (dpa) is widely employed as a damage index, calculated based on the displacement cross-section obtained using a calculation model. Although dpa is applied as standard, the experimental data of the displacement cross-section for a proton in the energy region above 20 MeV are scarce. Among the calculation models, difference of about factor 8 exist, so that the experimental data of the cross-section are crucial to validate the model. To obtain the displacement cross-section, we conducted experiments at J-PARC. The displacement cross-section of copper and iron was successfully obtained for a proton projectile with the kinetic energies, 0.4 - 3 GeV. The results were compared with those obtained using the widely utilized Norgertt-Robinson-Torrens (NRT) model and the athermal-recombination-corrected (arc) model based on molecular dynamics. It was found that the NRT model overestimates the present displacement cross-section by 3.5 times. The calculation results obtained using with the arc model based on the Nordlund parameter show remarkable agreement with the experimental data. It can be concluded that the arc model must be employed for the dpa calculation for the damage estimation of copper and iron.

Investigation of high-temperature chemical interaction of calcium silicate insulation and cesium hydroxide

Rizaal, M.; Nakajima, Kunihisa; Saito, Takumi*; Osaka, Masahiko; Okamoto, Koji*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(9), p.1062 - 1073, 2020/09

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1755733

The interaction of cesium hydroxide and a calcium silicate insulation material was experimentally investigated at high temperature conditions. A thermogravimetry equipped with differential thermal analysis was used to analyze thermal events in the samples of mixed calcium silicate and cesium hydroxide under Ar-5%H and Ar-4%H-20%H0 with maximum temperature of 1100C. Prior being mixed with cesium hydroxide, a part of calcium silicate was pretreated at high temperature to evaluate the effect of possible structural changes of this material due to a preceding thermal history and also the sake of thermodynamic evaluation to those available ones. Based upon the initial condition (preliminary heat treatment) of calcium silicate, it was found that if the original material consisted of xonotlite (CaSi0(0H)), the endothermic reaction with cesium hydroxide occurred over the temperature range 575-730C meanwhile if the crystal phase of original material was changed to wollastonite (CaSi0), the interaction occurred over temperature range 700-1100C. Furthermore, the X-ray diffraction analyses have indicated on both type of pretreated calsils that regardless of Ar-5%H and Ar-4%H-20%H0 atmosphere, cesium aluminum silicate, CsAlSi0 was formed with aluminum in the samples as an impurity or adduct.

Main findings, remaining uncertainties and lessons learned from the OECD/NEA BSAF Project

Pellegrini, M.*; Herranz, L.*; Sonnenkalb, M.*; Lind, T.*; Maruyama, Yu; Gauntt, R.*; Bixler, N.*; Morreale, A.*; Dolganov, K.*; Sevon, T.*; et al.

Nuclear Technology, 206(9), p.1449 - 1463, 2020/09

https://doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1724731

A Linear Equation of characteristic time profile of power in subcritical quasi-steady state

Yamane, Yuichi

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(8), p.926 - 931, 2020/08

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1736682

An equation of power in subcritical quasi-steady state has been derived based on one-point kinetics equations for the purpose of utilizing it for the development of timely reactivity estimation from complicated time profile of neutron count rate. It linearly relates power, , to a new variable , which is a function of time differential of the power. It has been confirmed by using one-point kinetics code, AGNES, that the calculated points () are perfectly in a line described by the new equation and that points () calculated from transient subcritical experiments by using TRACY made a line with a slope indicated by the new equation.