Development of failure mitigation technologies for improving resilience of nuclear structures, 5; Resilience improvements of fast reactors by failure mitigation for beyond design high temperature accidents

Futagami, Satoshi; Ando, Masanori; Yamano, Hidemasa

Transactions of the 27th International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (SMiRT 27) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2024/03

Ion tracks and nanohillocks created in natural zirconia irradiated with swift heavy ions

Ishikawa, Norito; Fukuda, Shoma; Nakajima, Toru; Ogawa, Hiroaki; Fujimura, Yuki; Taguchi, Tomitsugu*

Materials, 17(3), p.547_1 - 547_21, 2024/02

https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17030547

Natural monoclinic zirconia (baddeleyite) was irradiated with 340-MeV Au ions, and the irradiation-induced nanostructures (i.e., ion tracks and nanohillocks) were observed using transmission electron microscopy. The diameter of the nanohillocks is approximately 10 nm, which is similar to the maximum molten region size calculated using the analytical thermal spike model. Ion tracks are imaged as strained regions that maintain their crystalline structure. The cross-sections of most of the ion tracks are imaged as parallelopiped or rectangular contrasts as large as 10 nm. These results strongly indicate that the molten region is recrystallized anisotropically, reflecting the lattice structure. Furthermore, low-density track cores are formed in the center of the ion tracks. The formation of low-density track cores can be attributed to the ejection of molten matter toward the surface.

Slightly hydrogen-ordered state of ice IV evidenced by neutron diffraction

Kobayashi, Hiroki*; Komatsu, Kazuki*; Ito, Hayate*; Machida, Shinichi*; Hattori, Takanori; Kagi, Hiroyuki*

Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (Internet), 14(47), p.10664 - 10669, 2023/11

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c02563

Ice IV is a metastable high-pressure phase of ice in which the water molecules exhibit orientational disorder. Although orientational ordering is commonly observed for other ice phases, it has not been reported for ice IV. We conducted powder neutron diffraction experiments for DCl-doped DO ice IV to investigate hydrogen ordering in ice IV. We found abrupt changes in the temperature derivative of unit cell volume, dV/dT, at about 120 K, and revealed their slightly ordered structure at low temperatures based on the Rietveld method. The occupancy of the D1 site deviates from 0.5; it increased when samples were cooled at higher pressures and reached 0.282(5) at 2.38 GPa, 58 K. Our results evidence the presence of a low-symmetry hydrogen-ordered state corresponding to ice IV. It seems, however, difficult to experimentally access the completely ordered phase corresponding to ice IV by slow cooling at high pressure.

Document collection of the 39th Technical Special Committee on Fugen Decommissioning

Sato, Yuji; Miyamoto, Yuta; Awatani, Yuto; Yamamoto, Kosuke; Hatakeyama, Takumi

JAEA-Review 2023-002, 59 Pages, 2023/08

JAEA-Review-2023-002.pdf:8.75MB

"Fugen Decommissioning Engineering Center", in planning and carrying out our decommissioning technical development, organizes "Technical special committee on Fugen decommissioning" which consists of the members well-informed, aiming to make good use of Fugen as a place for technological development which is opened domestic and international, as the central place in research and development base of Fukui prefecture, and to utilize the outcome in our decommissioning to the technical development effectively. This report consists of presentation paper are "Achievements and Considerations for Sampling and Analysis of Reactor Core Components", "Treatment of liquid scintillator waste liquid" and "Results and issues of rationalization of decontamination related to the clearance and considerations related to surface contamination monitoring" which is presented in the 39th Technical Special Committee on Fugen Decommissioning.

Structural analysis of a reactor vessel in a sodium-cooled fast reactor under extremely high temperature conditions

Yamano, Hidemasa; Futagami, Satoshi; Ando, Masanori

Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 10(4), p.23-00043_1 - 23-00043_12, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1299/mej.23-00043

This study has conducted a detailed structural analysis of a reactor vessel (RV) in a loop-type sodium-cooled fast reactor using a general-purpose finite element analysis code, FINAS/STAR, to understand its deformation behavior under extremely high temperature conditions and to identify the areas which should be focused to mitigate impacts of failure. The RV was heated from the normal operation condition to the sodium boiling temperature in the upper sodium plenum during 20 hours assuming depressurization. The analysis has revealed less significant stress and strain which were sufficiently lower than failure criteria. The upper body of RV was identified as the important area in terms of mitigation of structural failure. The RV was eventually deformed downward about 16 cm, resulting in no failure. This effect contributes to maintaining RV sodium level in a long term, thereby enhancing the RV resilience.

Cu -edge X-ray absorption fine structure study of -type CuO ( = Rare Earth); Toward unified understanding of electronic state of -type cuprate

Chen, Y.*; Asano, Shun*; Wang, T.*; Xie, P.*; Kitayama, Shinnosuke*; Ishii, Kenji*; Matsumura, Daiju; Tsuji, Takuya; Taniguchi, Takanori*; Fujita, Masaki*

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 38, p.011050_1 - 011050_6, 2023/05

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.38.011050

Magnon dynamics in a Skyrmion-textured domain wall of antiferromagnets

Lee, S.*; Nakata, Koki; Tchernyshyov, O.*; Kim, S. K.*

Physical Review B, 107(18), p.184432_1 - 184432_12, 2023/05

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.184432

We theoretically investigate the interaction between magnons and a Skyrmion-textured domain wall in a two-dimensional antiferromagnet and elucidate the resultant properties of magnon transport. Using supersymmetric quantum mechanics, we solve the scattering problem of magnons on top of the domain wall and obtain the exact solutions of propagating and bound magnon modes. Then, we find their properties of reflection and refraction in the Skyrmion-textured domain wall, where magnons experience an emergent magnetic field due to its non-trivial spin texture-induced effective gauge field. Finally, we show that the thermal transport decreases as the domain wall's chirality increases. Our results suggest that the thermal transport of an antiferromagnet is tunable by modulating the Skyrmion charge density of the domain wall.

Verification of fuel assembly bowing analysis model for core deformation reactivity evaluation

Doda, Norihiro; Uwaba, Tomoyuki; Ohgama, Kazuya; Yoshimura, Kazuo; Nemoto, Toshiyuki*; Tanaka, Masaaki; Yamano, Hidemasa

Nihon Kikai Gakkai Kanto Shibu Dai-29-Ki Sokai, Koenkai Koen Rombunshu (Internet), 5 Pages, 2023/03

An evaluation method for reactivity feedback due to core deformation during reactor power increase in sodium-cooled fast reactors is being developed for realistic core design evaluation. In this evaluation method, fuel assembly bowing was modeled with a beam element of the finite element method, and the assembly's pad contact between adjacent assemblies was modeled with a dedicated element which could consider the wrapper tube cross-sectional distortion and the pad stiffness depending on pad contact conditions. This fuel assembly bowing analysis model was verified for thermal bowing of a single assembly and assembly pad contact between adjacent assemblies in a core as past benchmark problems. The calculation results by this model showed good agreement with those of reference solutions of theoretical solutions or results by participating institutions in the benchmark. This study confirmed that the analysis model was able to calculate thermal assembly bowing appropriately.

An Analytical method for quantifying the yields of DNA double-strand breaks coupled with strand breaks by -H2AX focus formation assay based on track-structure simulation

Yachi, Yoshie*; Matsuya, Yusuke*; Yoshii, Yuji*; Fukunaga, Hisanori*; Date, Hiroyuki*; Kai, Takeshi

International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Internet), 24(2), p.1386_1 - 1386_14, 2023/01

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24021386

When living cells are irradiated with radiation and complex damage is formed within a few nanometers of DNA, it is believed to induce biological effects such as cell death. In general, complex DNA damage formed in cells can be detected experimentally by fluorescence microscopy, because the area around the damage site emits light like a focus point when a fluorophore is used. However, this detection method has not been able to analyze the degree of complexity of DNA damage. Therefore, in this study, we addressed on the measured focus size and evaluated the degree of complexity of DNA damage using a track structure analysis code. As a result, we found that as DNA damage becomes more complex, the focus size also increases. Our findings are expected to provide a new analytical method for elucidating the initial factors of radiation biological effects.

Incommensurate helimagnetic structure of Ba(FeSc)O determined by single-crystal neutron diffraction

Tanaka, Seiya*; Kiyanagi, Ryoji; Ishikawa, Yoshihisa*; Amako, Yasushi*; Iiyama, Taku*; Futamura, Ryusuke*; Maruyama, Kenichi*; Utsumi, Shigenori*

Physical Review Materials (Internet), 7(1), p.014403_1 - 014403_11, 2023/01

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.7.014403