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Li, L.*; Miyamoto, Goro*; Zhang, Y.*; Li, M.*; Morooka, Satoshi; Oikawa, Katsunari*; Tomota, Yo*; Furuhara, Tadashi*
Journal of Materials Science & Technology, 184, p.221 - 234, 2024/06
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)Yoshikawa, Ryuji; Imai, Yasutomo*; Kikuchi, Norihiro; Tanaka, Masaaki; Ohshima, Hiroyuki
Nuclear Technology, 210(5), p.814 - 835, 2024/05
Times Cited Count：0In the study of safety enhancement on advanced sodium-cooled fast reactor, it is essential to clarify the thermal-hydraulics under various operation conditions in a fuel assembly (FA) with the wire-wrapped fuel pins to assess the structural integrity of the fuel pin. A finite element thermal-hydraulics analysis code named SPIRAL has been developed to analyze the detailed thermal-hydraulics phenomena in a FA. In this study, the numerical simulations of the 37-pin bundle sodium experiments at different Re number conditions, including a transitional condition between laminar and turbulent flows and turbulent flow conditions, were performed to validate the hybrid turbulence model equipped in SPIRAL. The temperature distributions predicted by SPIRAL was consistent with those measured in the experiments. Through the validation study, the applicability of the hybrid turbulence model in SPIRAL to thermal-hydraulic evaluation of sodium-cooled FA in the wide range of Re number was confirmed.
Horii, Yuta; Hirooka, Shun; Uno, Hiroki*; Ogasawara, Masahiro*; Tamura, Tetsuya*; Yamada, Tadahisa*; Furusawa, Naoya*; Murakami, Tatsutoshi; Kato, Masato
Journal of Nuclear Materials, 588, p.154799_1 - 154799_20, 2024/01
Times Cited Count：1 Percentile：72.91(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)The thermal conductivities of near-stoichiometric (U,Pu,Am)O
doped with NdO
/SmO, which is major fission product (FP) generated by a uranium-plutonium mixed oxides (MOX) fuel irradiation, as simulated fission products are evaluated at 1073-1673 K. The thermal conductivities are calculated from the thermal diffusivities that are measured using the laser flash method. To evaluate the thermal conductivity from a homogeneity viewpoint of Nd/Sm cations in MOX, the specimens with different homogeneity of Nd/Sm are prepared using two kinds of powder made by ball-mill and fusion methods. A homogeneous Nd/Sm distribution decreases the thermal conductivity of MOX with increasing Nd/Sm content, whereas heterogeneous Nd/Sm has no influence. The effect of Nd/Sm on the thermal conductivity is studied using the classical phonon transport model (A+BT)
. The dependences of the coefficients A and B on the Nd/Sm content (C
and C
, respectively) are evaluated as: A(mK/W)=1.70 
10
+ 0.93C + 1.20C, B(m/W)=2.39 10
.
Nb by activation method and half-life of 
Nb by mass analysisNakamura, Shoji; Shibahara, Yuji*; Endo, Shunsuke; Kimura, Atsushi
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 60(11), p.1361 - 1371, 2023/11
Times Cited Count：1 Percentile：72.91(Nuclear Science & Technology)The thermal-neutron capture cross section (
) and resonance integral (I) for Nb among nuclides for decommissioning were measured by an activation method and the half-life of Nb by mass analysis. Niobium-93 samples were irradiated with a hydraulic conveyer installed in the research reactor in Institute for Integral Radiation and Nuclear Science, Kyoto University. Gold-aluminum, cobalt-aluminum alloy wires were used to monitor thermal-neutron fluxes and epi-thermal Westcott's indexes at an irradiation position. A 25-
m-thick gadolinium foil was used to sort out reactions ascribe to thermal-and epi-thermal neutrons. Its thickness provided a cut-off energy of 0.133 eV. In order to attenuate radioactivity of 
Ta due to impurities, the Nb samples were cooled for nearly 2 years. The induced radio activity in the monitors and Nb samples were measured by 
-ray spectroscopy. In analysis based on Westcott's convention, the and I values were derived as 1.11
0.04 barn and 10.50.6 barn, respectively. After the -ray measurements, mass analysis was applied to the Nb sample to obtain the reaction rate. By combining data obtained by both -ray spectroscopy and mass analysis, the half-life of Nb was derived as (2.000.15)10
years.
Okita, Shoichiro; Goto, Minoru
Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC2023) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2023/10
Kawano, Takahiro*; Mizuta, Naoki; Ueta, Shohei; Tachibana, Yukio; Yoshida, Katsumi*
JAEA-Technology 2023-014, 37 Pages, 2023/08
JAEA-Technology-2023-014.pdf:2.35MB
Fuel compact for High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) is fabricated by calcinating a matrix consisting of graphite and binder with the coated fuel particle. The SiC-matrixed fuel compact uses a new matrix made of silicon carbide (SiC) replacing the conventional graphite. Applying the SiC-matrixed fuel compact for HTGRs is expected to improve their performance such as power densities. In this study, the sintering conditions for applying SiC as the matrix of fuel compacts for HTGR are selected, and the density and thermal conductivity of the prototype SiC are measured.
Yamazaki, Yasuhiro*; Shinomiya, Keisuke*; Okumura, Tadaharu*; Suzuki, Kenji*; Shobu, Takahisa; Nakamura, Yuiga*
Quantum Beam Science (Internet), 7(2), p.14_1 - 14_12, 2023/05
Fe
intermetallic compoundCao, Y.*; Zhou, H.*; Khmelevskyi, S.*; Lin, K.*; Avdeev, M.*; Wang, C.-W.*; Wang, B.*; Hu, F.*; Kato, Kenichi*; Hattori, Takanori; et al.
Chemistry of Materials, 35(8), p.3249 - 3255, 2023/04
Times Cited Count：1 Percentile：0(Chemistry, Physical)Hydrostatic and chemical pressure are efficient stimuli to alter the crystal structure and are commonly used for tuning electronic and magnetic properties in materials science. However, chemical pressure is difficult to quantify and a clear correspondence between these two types of pressure is still lacking. Here, we study intermetallic candidates for a permanent magnet with a negative thermal expansion (NTE). Based on in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction, negative chemical pressure is revealed in HoFe on Al doping and quantitatively evaluated by using temperature and pressure dependence of unit cell volume. A combination of magnetization and neutron diffraction measurements also allowed one to compare the effect of chemical pressure on magnetic ordering with that of hydrostatic pressure. Intriguingly, pressure can be used to control suppression and enhancement of NTE. Electronic structure calculations indicate that pressure affected the top of the majority band with respect to the Fermi level, which has implications for the magnetic stability, which in turn plays a critical role in modulating magnetism and NTE. This work presents a good example of understanding the effect of pressure and utilizing it to control properties of functional materials.
Kobayashi, Jun; Aizawa, Kosuke; Ezure, Toshiki; Nagasawa, Kazuyoshi*; Kurihara, Akikazu; Tanaka, Masaaki
JAEA-Research 2022-009, 125 Pages, 2023/01
JAEA-Research-2022-009.pdf:29.22MB
The design studies of an advanced loop-type sodium-cooled fast reactor (Advanced- SFR) have been carried out by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). At the core outlet, temperature fluctuations occur due to mixing of hot sodium from the fuel assembly with cold sodium from the control rod channels and radial blanket assembly. These temperature fluctuations may cause high cycle thermal fatigue around a bottom of Upper Internal Structure (UIS) located above the core. Therefore, we conducted a water experiment using a 1/3 scale 60 degree sector model that simulated the upper plenum of the advanced loop-type sodium-cooled reactor. And we proposed some countermeasures against large temperature fluctuations that occur at the bottom of the UIS. In this report, we have summarized that the effect of the countermeasure structure to mitigate the temperature fluctuation generated at the bottom of UIS is confirmed, and the Reynolds number dependency of the countermeasure structure and the characteristics of the temperature fluctuation on the control rod surface.
Wu, P.*; Murai, Naoki; Li, T.*; Kajimoto, Ryoichi; Nakamura, Mitsutaka; Kofu, Maiko; Nakajima, Kenji; Xia, K.*; Peng, K.*; Zhang, Y.*; et al.
New Journal of Physics (Internet), 25(1), p.013032_1 - 013032_11, 2023/01
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0(Physics, Multidisciplinary)Nakamura, Shoji; Shibahara, Yuji*; Endo, Shunsuke; Kimura, Atsushi
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 59(11), p.1388 - 1398, 2022/11
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.01(Nuclear Science & Technology)The present study selected 
Np among radioactive nuclides and aimed to measure the thermal-neutron capture cross-section for Np in a well-thermalized neutron field by an activation method. A Np standard solution was used for irradiation samples. A thermal-neutron flux at an irradiation position was measured with neutron flux monitors: 
Sc, 
Co, 
Mo, 
Ta and 
Au. The Np sample and flux monitors were irradiated together for 30 minutes in the graphite thermal column equipped with the Kyoto University Research Reactor. The similar irradiation was carried out twice. After the irradiations, the Np samples were quantified using 312-keV gamma ray emitted from 
Pa in a radiation equilibrium with Np. The reaction rates of Np were obtained from gamma-ray peak net counts given by 
Np, and then the thermal-neutron capture cross-section of Np was found to be 173.84.4 barn by averaging the results obtained by the two irradiations. The present result was in agreement with the reported data given by a time-of-flight method within the limit of uncertainty.
Nakamura, Hideo; Bentaib, A.*; Herranz, L. E.*; Ruyer, P.*; Mascari, F.*; Jacquemain, D.*; Adorni, M.*
Proceedings of International Conference on Topical Issues in Nuclear Installation Safety; Strengthening Safety of Evolutionary and Innovative Reactor Designs (TIC 2022) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2022/10
Porcheron, E.*; Leblois, Y.*; Journeau, C.*; Delacroix, J.*; Molina, D.*; Suteau, C.*; Berlemont, R.*; Bouland, A.*; Lallot, Y.*; Roulet, D.*; et al.
Proceedings of International Topical Workshop on Fukushima Decommissioning Research (FDR2022) (Internet), 5 Pages, 2022/10
One of the important challenges for the decommissioning of the damaged reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (1F) is the fuel debris retrieval. The URASOL project, which is undertaken by a French consortium consisting of ONET Technologies, CEA, and IRSN for JAEA/CLADS, is dedicated to acquiring basic scientific data on the generation and characteristics of radioactive aerosols from the thermal or mechanical processing of fuel debris simulant. Heating process undertaken in the VITAE facility simulates some representative conditions of thermal cutting by LASER. For mechanical cutting, the core boring technique is implemented in the FUJISAN facility. Fuel debris simulants have been developed for inactive and active trials. The aerosols are characterized in terms of mass concentration, real time number concentration, mass size distribution, morphology, and chemical properties. The chemical characterization aims at identifying potential radioactive particles released and the associated size distribution, both of which are important information for assessing possible safety and radioprotection measures during the fuel debris retrieval operations at 1F.
Rizaal, M.; Nakajima, Kunihisa; Saito, Takumi*; Osaka, Masahiko; Okamoto, Koji*
ACS Omega (Internet), 7(33), p.29326 - 29336, 2022/08
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：29.84(Chemistry, Multidisciplinary)Doi, Daisuke
Proceedings of 29th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE 29) (Internet), 7 Pages, 2022/08
Np(n, ) reaction with TC-Pn in KURNakamura, Shoji; Endo, Shunsuke; Kimura, Atsushi; Shibahara, Yuji*
KURNS Progress Report 2021, P. 93, 2022/07
In terms of nuclear transmutation studies of minor actinides in nuclear wastes, the present work selected Np among them and aimed to measure the thermal-neutron capture cross-section of Np using a well-thermalized neutron field by a neutron activation method because there have been discrepancies among reported cross-section data. A Np standard solution was used for irradiation samples. The thermal-neutron flux at an irradiation position was measured with flux monitors: Sc, Co, Mo, Ta and Au. The Np sample was irradiated together with the flux monitors for 30 minutes in the graphite thermal column equipped in the Kyoto University Research Reactor. The similar irradiation was repeated once more to confirm the reproducibility of the results. After irradiation, the Np samples were quantified using 312-keV gamma-ray emitted from Pa in radiation equilibrium with Np. The reaction rates of Np were obtained from the peak net counts of gamma-rays emitted from generated Np, and then the thermal-neutron capture cross-section of Np was found to be 173.84.7 barn by averaging the results obtained by the two irradiations. The present result was in agreement with the reported data given by a time-of-flight method within a limit of uncertainty.
Pu
Am
)O (z = 0.05, 0.10, and 0.15)Yokoyama, Keisuke; Watanabe, Masashi; Tokoro, Daishiro*; Sugimoto, Masatoshi*; Morimoto, Kyoichi; Kato, Masato; Hino, Tetsushi*
Nuclear Materials and Energy (Internet), 31, p.101156_1 - 101156_7, 2022/06
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：68.71(Nuclear Science & Technology)In current nuclear fuel cycle systems, to reduce the amount of high-level radioactive waste, minor actinides (MAs) bearing MOX fuel is one option for burning MAs using fast reactor. However, the effects of Am content in fuel on thermal conductivity are unclear because there are no experimental data on thermal conductivity of high Am bearing MOX fuel. In this study, The thermal conductivities of near stoichiometric (UPuAm)O solid solutions(z = 0.05, 0.10, and 0.15) have been measured between room temperature (RT) and 1473 K. The thermal conductivities decreased with increasing Am content and satisfied the classical phonon transport model ((A+BT)) up to about 1473 K. A values increased linearly with increasing Am content because the change in ionic radius affects the conduction of the phonon due to the solid solution in U
and Am
. B values were independent of Am content.
Hashimoto, Shunsuke*; Nakajima, Kenji; Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Kamazawa, Kazuya*; Shibata, Kaoru; Yamada, Takeshi*
Journal of Molecular Liquids, 342, p.117580_1 - 117580_8, 2021/11
Times Cited Count：3 Percentile：27(Chemistry, Physical)Quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) and pulsed-field-gradient nuclear magnetic resonance (PFGNMR) analyses of a nanofluid composed of silicon dioxide (SiO) nanoparticles and a base fluid of ethylene glycol aqueous solution were performed. The aim was to elucidate the mechanism increase in the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid above its theoretical value. The obtained experimental results indicate that SiO particles may decrease the self-diffusion coefficient of the liquid molecules in the ethylene glycol aqueous solution because of their highly restricted motion around these nanoparticles. At a constant temperature, the thermal conductivity increases as the self-diffusion coefficient of the liquid molecules decreases in the SiO nanofluids.
Ina, Takuya*; Idomura, Yasuhiro; Imamura, Toshiyuki*; Yamashita, Susumu; Onodera, Naoyuki
Proceedings of 12th Workshop on Latest Advances in Scalable Algorithms for Large-Scale Systems ScalA21) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2021/11
Times Cited Count：1 Percentile：50.67(Computer Science, Software Engineering)A new mixed-precision preconditioner based on the iterative refinement (IR) method is developed for preconditioned conjugate gradient (P-CG) and multigrid preconditioned conjugate gradient (MGCG) solvers in a multi-phase thermal-hydraulic CFD code JUPITER. In the IR preconditioner, all data is stored in FP16 to reduce memory access, while all computation is performed in FP32. The hybrid FP16/32 implementation keeps the similar convergence property as FP32, while the computational performance is close to FP16. The developed solvers are optimized on Fugaku (A64FX), and applied to ill-conditioned matrices in JUPITER. The P-CG and MGCG solvers with the new IR preconditioner show excellent strong scaling up to 8,000 nodes, and at 8,000 nodes, they are respectively accelerated up to 4.86 and 2.39 from the conventional ones on Oakforest-PACS (KNL).
Kato, Takuma*; Nagaoka, Mika; Guo, H.*; Fujita, Hiroki; Aida, Taku*; Smith, R. L. Jr.*
Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 28(39), p.55725 - 55735, 2021/10
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0(Environmental Sciences)In this work, hydrothermal leaching was applied to simulated soils (clay minerals vermiculite, montmorillonite, kaolinite) and actual soils (Terunuma, Japan) to generate organic acids with the objective to develop an additive-free screening method for determination of Sr in soil. Stable strontium (SrCl) was adsorbed onto soils for study and ten organic acids were evaluated for leaching Sr from simulated soils under hydrothermal conditions (120 to 200
C) at concentrations up to 0.3 M. For strontium-adsorbed vermiculite (Sr-V), 0.1 M citric acid was found to be effective for leaching Sr at 150C and 1 h treatment time. Based on these results, the formation of organic acids from organic matter in Terunuma soil was studied. Hydrothermal treatment of Terunuma soil produced a maximum amount of organic acids at 200C and 0.5 h reaction time. To confirm the possibility for leaching of Sr from Terunuma soil, strontium-adsorbed Terunuma soil (Sr-S) was studied. For Sr-S, hydrothermal treatment at 200C for 0.5 h reaction time allowed 40% of the Sr to be leached at room temperature, thus demonstrating an additive-free method for screening of Sr in soil. The additive-free hydrothermal leaching method avoids calcination of solids in the first step of chemical analysis and has application to both routine monitoring of metals in soils and to emergency situations.
