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Mori, Tetsuya; Hazama, Taira; Katagiri, Hiroki*; Ohgama, Kazuya
Nuclear Technology, 211(1), p.143 - 160, 2025/01
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.00(Nuclear Science & Technology)The reliability and usefulness of the reaction rate distribution data measured in the prototype fast breeder reactor Monju were examined through a comparison with a calculation using JENDL-4.0, mainly focusing on shielding regions around the reactor core. The 
U(n,f) and 
Ni(n,p) reaction rates sensitive to high-energy neutrons were all judged reliable. The calculation-to-experiment values are slightly worse in the shielding regions, where those for the Ni(n,p) reaction rates were improved by employing JEFF-3.3 instead of JENDL-4.0. A different tendency was observed between the two reactions, probably due to the U(n,f) cross section in the energy range of around 700 eV. The reaction rates of 
U(n,f), 
Pu(n,f), U(n,
), and 
Au(n,) sensitive to the lower energy neutrons were mostly judged reliable. The data in the lower shielding region are less reliable but acceptable for the shielding calculation.
Hazama, Taira
Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors; JSME Series in Thermal and Nuclear Power Generation, Vol.3, p.87 - 161, 2022/07
Ito, Kenji; Kondo, Tetsuo; Nakamura, Yasuyuki; Matsuno, Hiroki; Nagaoki, Yoshihiro; Sakuma, Yuichi
Dekomisshoningu Giho, (63), p.1 - 26, 2022/05
The prototype advanced thermal reactor Fugen entered into the decommissioning phases with the approval of the decommissioning plan in February 2008. The prototype fast breeder reactor Monju entered into the decommissioning stage with the approval of the decommissioning plan in March 2018. In April 2018, the head office of Tsuruga decommissioning demonstration was newly established to oversee the decommissioning operations in Tsuruga area, and decommissioning projects for two unique reactors have progressed safely and steadily.
Tozawa, Katsuhiro
Genshiryoku Bakkuendo Kenkyu (CD-ROM), 27(2), p.119 - 133, 2020/12
Since Monju started decommissioning with fuel in the reactor vessel, fuel removal from the reactor vessel will be given top priority until the year 2022 in the first stage. The number of fuel subassemblies to be handled has been changed from the initially planned 100 to 86 because there were 232 problems in the fuel handling work in FY2018 due to the fact that the continuous handling of fuel subassemblies up to that time was not sufficient. The problems that occurred were dealt with by three main measures, "Measures for increasing the fuel gripper torque of the main body A of the fuel transfer machine", "Measures for increasing torque of main gripper torque of the main body B of the fuel transfer machine ", and "Measures for software defects". As a result, the number of problems in the fuel handling work in 2020 was significantly reduced to 27, and the number of fuel handling is from initially planned 130 to 174.
Tsuji, Mitsuyo; Aizawa, Kosuke; Kobayashi, Jun; Kurihara, Akikazu; Miyake, Yasuhiro*
Proceedings of 2020 International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE 2020) (Internet), 5 Pages, 2020/08
The water experiments using a 1/10 scale experimental apparatus simulating the reactor vessel of SFR were conducted to investigate the natural circulation phenomena in a reactor vessel. In this paper, the natural circulation flow field in the reactor vessel was measured by the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) method. The PIV measurement was carried out under the operation of the dipped-type direct heat exchanger (DHX) installed in the upper plenum when 20% of the core fuel fell to the lower plenum and accumulated on the core catcher. From the results of PIV measurement, it was quantitatively confirmed that the upward flow occurred at the center region of the lower and upper plenums. In addition, the downward flows were confirmed near the reactor vessel wall in the upper plenum and through outermost layer of the simulated core in the lower plenum. Moreover, the relationship between the temperature field and the velocity field was investigated in order to understand the natural circulation phenomenon in the reactor vessel. From the above results, it was confirmed that the natural circulation cooling path was established under the dipped-type DHX operation.
Kondo, Satoru; Tobita, Yoshiharu
JAEA-Research 2019-009, 382 Pages, 2020/03
JAEA-Research-2019-009.pdf:22.82MB
The SIMMER-III computer code, developed at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA, the former Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation), is a two-dimensional, multi-velocity-field, multi-component fluid-dynamics code, coupled with a space- and time-dependent neutron kinetics model. The code is being used widely for simulating complex phenomena during core-disruptive accidents (CDAs) in liquid-metal fast reactors (LMFRs). In parallel to the code development, a comprehensive assessment program was performed in two phases: Phase 1 for verifying individual fluid-dynamics models; and Phase 2 for validating its applicability to integral phenomena important to evaluating LMFR CDAs. The SIMMERIII assessment program was participated by European research and development organizations, and the achievement of Phase 1 was compiled and synthesized in 1996. This report has been edited by revising and reproducing the original 1996 informal report, which compiled the achievement of Phase 1 assessment. A total of 34 test problems were studied in the areas: fluid convection, interfacial area and momentum exchange, heat transfer, melting and freezing, and vaporization and condensation. The problems identified have been reflected to the Phase 2 assessment and later model development and improvement. Although the revisions were made in the light of knowledge base obtained later, the original individual contributions by the participants, both positive and negative, are retained except for editorial changes.
Koga, Kazuhiro*; Suzuki, Kazunori*; Takagi, Tsuyohiko; Hamano, Tomoharu
FAPIG, (196), p.8 - 15, 2020/01
The prototype fast breeder reactor Monju has already started (from June 2017) the unloading operation period (about 5.5 years: until the end of 2022) of the fuel assembly, which is the first stage of decommission. Among them, the first "Processing of fuel assembly" operation (86 in total) was conducted from August 2018 to January 2019 as the first handling of the fuel assembly. Fuji Electric provided technical support, such as dispatching technicians throughout the period, in cooperation with Japan Atomic Energy Agency for the "Processing of fuel assembly" operation, and contributed to the completion of the operation while experiencing various troubles. This manuscript introduces the contents of the first "Processing of fuel assembly" operation and the overview of the trouble status. This manuscript is a sequel to FAPIG No.194 "Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor Monju Decommissioning and Unloading Operation of the Fuel Assembly from the Core", please refer to it.
Tsuruga Comprehensive Research and Development Center
JAEA-Technology 2019-007, 159 Pages, 2019/07
JAEA-Technology-2019-007.pdf:19.09MBJAEA-Technology-2019-007-high-resolution1.pdf:42.36MBJAEA-Technology-2019-007-high-resolution2.pdf:33.56MBJAEA-Technology-2019-007-high-resolution3.pdf:38.14MBJAEA-Technology-2019-007-high-resolution4.pdf:48.82MBJAEA-Technology-2019-007-high-resolution5.pdf:37.61MB
This report summarizes the history and achievements of the prototype fast breeder reactor Monju. The development of Monju started in 1968 as a prototype reactor following the experimental fast reactor Joyo. The development covers all the activity related to the fast reactor; plant design, mockup tests, construction, operation, and plant management. This report summarizes the history and achievements for 11 technical areas: history and principal achievements, design and construction, operation test, plant safety, core physics, fuel, plant system, sodium technology, materials and mechanical design, plant management, and trouble management.
Wakai, Takashi; Machida, Hideo*; Arakawa, Manabu*; Yanagihara, Seiji*; Suzuki, Ryosuke*; Matsubara, Masaaki*
Proceedings of 26th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-26) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2018/07
This paper studies crack opening displacement (COD) evaluation methods used in Leak-Before-Break (LBB) assessment of Sodium cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) pipe. For SFR pipe, the continuous leak monitoring will be adopted as an alternative to a volumetric test of the weld joints under conditions that satisfy LBB. The sodium pipes are made of ASME Gr.91 (modified 9Cr-1Mo steel). Thickness of the pipes is small, because the internal pressure is very small. Modified 9Cr-1Mo steel has a relatively large yield stress and small work hardening coefficient comparing to the austenitic stainless steels which are currently used in the conventional plants. In order to assess the LBB behavior of the sodium pipes made of modified 9Cr-1Mo steel, the coolant leak rate from a through wall crack must be estimated properly. Since the leak rate is strongly related to the crack opening displacement (COD), an appropriate COD assessment method must be established to perform LBB assessment. However, COD assessment method applicable for SFR pipes - having thin wall thickness and made of small work hardening material - has not been proposed yet. Thus, a COD assessment method applicable to such a pipe was proposed in this study. In this method, COD was calculated by classifying the components of COD; elastic, local plastic and fully plastic. In addition, the verification of this method was performed by comparing with the results of a series of four-point bending tests using modified 9Cr-1Mo steel pipe having a circumferential through wall notch. As a result, in some cases, COD were over-estimated especially for large cracks. Although the elastic component of COD is still over-estimated for large cracks, leak evaluation from small cracks is much more important in LBB assessment. Therefore, this study recommends that only the elastic component of COD should be adopted in LBB assessment of SFR pipes.
Fukaya, Yuji
Uranium; Safety, Resources, Separation and Thermodynamic Calculation, p.22 - 48, 2018/05
Safety and economics of uranium utilization for nuclear power generation were investigated and discussed. In order to sustain energy supply with nuclear power generation, uranium resources should be abundant. From the viewpoint of depletion of the resources, FBR, which is breeder reactor of plutonium, has been developed, but that has been not diffused as a commercial reactor yet. Instead of obtaining inexhaustible resources by breeding plutonium, it is known that the inherent safety feature becomes weak in the fast neutron spectrum. As the result of the investigation, it is confirmed with concrete FBR designs that the inherent safety feature and breeding ability are related to the transactions. The amount of uranium resources and electricity generation cost with the resources were investigated. It is concluded that the semi-permanently sustainable energy supply can be established with reasonable cost by using seawater uranium. In addition, the significance of P&T, which is one of the advantages of FBR, was also discussed from the viewpoint of environmental burden from radioactive waste.
Wakai, Takashi; Machida, Hideo*; Arakawa, Manabu*; Kikuchi, Koichi*
Proceedings of ASME Symposium on Elevated Temperature Applications of Materials for Fossil, Nuclear, and Petrochemical Industries, 7 Pages, 2018/04
A simplified J-integral evaluation method applicable to unstable failure analysis in Leak Before Break (LBB) assessment of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) in Japan was proposed. Mod.9Cr-1Mo steel is supposed to be a candidate material for the coolant systems of SFR in Japan. This steel has relatively high yield strength and poor fracture toughness comparing to those of conventional austenitic stainless steels. In addition, SFR pipe has small thickness and large diameter. As a J-integral evaluation method for circumferential through-wall crack in a cylinder, EPRI has proposed a fully plastic solution method. However, the geometry of SFR pipe and material characteristics of Mod.9Cr-1Mo steel exceed the applicable range of EPRI's method. Therefore, a series of elastic, elasto-plastic and plastic finite element analyses (FEA) were performed for a pipe with a circumferential through-wall crack to propose a J-integral evaluation method applicable to such loading conditions. J-integrals obtained from the FEA were resolved into elastic, local plastic and fully plastic components. Each component was expressed as a function of analytical parameter, such as pipe geometries, crack size, material characteristics and so on. As a result, a simplified J-integral evaluation method was proposed. The method enables to conduct 2 parameter failure analysis using J-integral without any fracture mechanics knowledge.
Takano, Kazuya; Maruyama, Shuhei; Hazama, Taira; Usami, Shin
Proceedings of Reactor Physics Paving the Way Towards More Efficient Systems (PHYSOR 2018) (USB Flash Drive), p.1725 - 1735, 2018/04
Irradiation dependence of the core excess reactivity was investigated for the Monju system startup tests at zero-power carried out in 2010. The excess reactivity basically decreases with the 
decay of 
Pu in zero-power operation. However, the excess reactivity little changed in the two month period of the startup tests, which suggests a positive reactivity insertion during the period. The investigated irradiation dependence shows that the positive reactivity increases with reactor operation and mostly saturates by the fission-dose attained during the Monju zero-power operation in a month (
10
fissions/cm
). The saturated positive reactivity is equivalent to approximately 47% of the initially accumulated self-irradiation damage recovery assuming the defects were recovered by the fission-fragment irradiation in the reactor operation.
Ichikawa, Shoichi; Chiba, Yusuke; Ono, Fumiyasu; Hatori, Masakazu; Kobayashi, Takanori; Uekura, Ryoichi; Hashiri, Nobuo*; Inuzuka, Taisuke*; Kitano, Hiroshi*; Abe, Hisashi*
JAEA-Research 2016-021, 32 Pages, 2017/02
JAEA-Research-2016-021.pdf:5.0MB
In order to reduce the influence on a plant schedule of the MONJU by the maintenance of dew point hygrometers, The JAEA examined a capacitance type dew point hygrometer as an alternative dew point hygrometer for a lithium-chloride type dew point hygrometer which had been used at the CV-LRT in the MONJU. As a result of comparing a capacitance type dew point hygrometer with a lithium-chloride type dew point hygrometer at the CV-LRT (Atmosphere: nitrogen, Testing time: 24 hours), there weren't significant difference between a capacitance type dew point hygrometer and a lithium-chloride type dew point hygrometer. As a result of comparing a capacitance dew point hygrometer with a high-mirror-surface type dew point hygrometer for long term verification (Atmosphere: air, Testing time: 24 months), the JAEA confirmed that a capacitance type dew point hygrometer satisfied the instrument specification (
2.04
C) required by the JEAC4203-2008.
TiO
during DT neutron irradiation by use of an improved tritium collection methodEdao, Yuki; Kawamura, Yoshinori; Hoshino, Tsuyoshi; Ochiai, Kentaro
Fusion Engineering and Design, 112, p.480 - 485, 2016/11
Times Cited Count：8 Percentile：55.65(Nuclear Science & Technology)The accurate measurement of behavior of bred tritium released from a tritium breeder is indispensable to understand the behavior for a design of a tritium extraction system. The tritium collection method combined a CuO bed and water bubbles was not suitable to measure transient behavior of tritium released from LiTiO during neutron irradiation because tritium released behavior was changed to be delayed due to adsorption of oxidized tritium on the CuO. Hence, the tritium collection method with hydrophobic catalyst instead of the CuO was demonstrated and succeeded the accurate release measurement of tritium from LiTiO. With the method, we assessed the behavior of tritium release under the various conditions since tritium should be released from LiTiO as the form of HT as much as possible from the view point of the fuel cycle. Our results indicated; promotion of isotopic exchange reaction on the surface of LiTiO by addition of hydrogen in sweep gas is mandatory in order to release tritium smoothly from LiTiO irradiated with neutrons; the favorable sweep gas to release as the form of HT was hydrogen added inert gas; and the temperature of LiTiO was the dominant parameter to control the chemical form of tritium released from the LiTiO.
Kitano, Akihiro; Takegoshi, Atsushi*; Hazama, Taira
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 53(7), p.992 - 1008, 2016/07
Times Cited Count：10 Percentile：63.56(Nuclear Science & Technology)A feedback reactivity measurement technique was developed based on a reactivity model featuring components that depend on the reactivity coefficients, denoted as reactor power (K
) and reactor vessel inlet temperature (K
). This technique was applied to the feedback reactivity experiment conducted in the Monju system start-up test in May 2010. A thorough evaluation considering all possible biases and uncertainties revealed that the reactivity coefficients can be evaluated with a measurement uncertainty smaller than 3%. The evaluated reactivity coefficients were simulated considering the temperature distribution in the core. The C/E value of K showed good agreement between calculated and measured values within the established uncertainty, and the value of K was consistent with that reported in a previous isothermal temperature coefficient experiment. The measured and calculated fuel subassembly outlet temperatures also agreed well within 0.2C.
Hiroi, Hiroshi*; Arai, Masanobu; Kisohara, Naoyuki
Dai-21-Kai Doryoku, Enerugi Gijutsu Shimpojiumu Koen Rombunshu (USB Flash Drive), 3 Pages, 2016/06
The purpose of fast breeder reactors (FBR) and the role of Monju were discussed in Ministry of education, culture, sports science and technology-Japan (MEXT) after the Fukushima NNP accident. The discussion has concluded that FBRs contribute to energy security and reduction of high-level radioactive waste, and that Monju is to be utilized to demonstrate these usefulness and to implement international contributions. This paper addresses anticipated R&D results from Monju on the basis of the enforcement of new nuclear regulation, the energy situations in Japan and the international status of FBR development and collaborations.
Sector of Fast Reactor Research and Development
JAEA-Evaluation 2015-005, 77 Pages, 2015/09
JAEA-Evaluation-2015-005.pdf:1.9MB
JAEA-Evaluation-2015-005-appendix(CD-ROM).zip:54.13MB
Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) asked the advisory committee "Evaluation Committee of Research and Development Activities for Fast Reactor Cycle" (the Committee) to assess "R&D Programs on FBR/FR Cycle Technologies" and "R&D Programs on Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor Monju and its Related Activities" during the period between FY2010 and FY2014, in accordance with "General Guideline for the Evaluation of Government R&D Activities" by Japanese Cabinet Office, "Guideline Evaluation of R&D in Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology" and "Regulation on Conduct for Evaluation R&D Activities" by JAEA. This report summarizes results of proposal by the Committee.
Kato, Shinya; Shimomoto, Yoshihiko; Kato, Yuko; Kitano, Akihiro
JAEA-Technology 2014-043, 36 Pages, 2015/02
JAEA-Technology-2014-043.pdf:8.94MB
The core management and operation code system aims to perform core management task efficiently by systematic management of data, analyses and edits, which are needed in the reactor core management and operation. The system consists of the five calculation modules: the reactor constant generation module, the neutronic-thermal calculation module, the radiation analysis module, the core structural integrity estimation module, and the core operation analysis module. In these modules, the neutronic-thermal calculation module is based on the dedicated three-dimensional diffusion and burn-up code HIZER. HIZER can execute core calculations easily for specific design specification and operation patterns of Monju, enabling efficient and accurate evaluation of the Monju core characteristics. This report describes its calculation method and validation results.
Advisory Committee on Monju Safety Requirements
JAEA-Evaluation 2014-005, 275 Pages, 2014/11
JAEA-Evaluation-2014-005.pdf:134.4MB
In July 2013, Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has enforced new regulatory requirements in consideration of severe accidents for the commercial light water reactors (LWR) and also prototype power generation reactors such as the sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFR) of "Monju" based on TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident occurred in March 2011. Although the regulatory requirements for SFR will be revised by NRA with consideration for public comments, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) set up "Advisory Committee on Monju Safety Concept" consists of fast breeder reactor (FBR) and safety assessment experts in order to establish original safety requirements expected to prototype FBR "Monju" considering severe accidents with knowledge from JAEA as well as scientific and technical insights from the experts. This report summarizes the safety requirements expected to Monju discussed by the committee.
Fast Breeder Reactor Research and Development Center, Tsuruga Head Office
JAEA-Review 2014-030, 138 Pages, 2014/08
JAEA-Review-2014-030.pdf:71.69MB
The prototype fast breeder reactor Monju has accumulated technical achievements in order to establish the fast breeder reactor cycle technology in Japan using the operation and maintenance experience, etc. This annual report summarizes the primary achievements and the data related to the plant management in Monju during fiscal 2013.
