Sensitivity coefficient evaluation of an accelerator-driven system using ROM-Lasso method

Katano, Ryota; Yamamoto, Akio*; Endo, Tomohiro*

Nuclear Science and Engineering, 196(10), p.1194 - 1208, 2022/10

https://doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2067447

In this study, we propose the ROM-Lasso method that enables efficient evaluation of sensitivity coefficients of neutronics parameters to cross-sections. In the proposed method, a vector of sensitivity coefficients is expanded by subspace bases, so-called Active Subspace (AS) based on the idea of Reduced Order Modeling (ROM). Then, the expansion coefficients are evaluated by the Lasso linear regression between cross-sections and neutronics parameters obtained by the random sampling. The proposed method can be applied in the case where the adjoint method is difficult to be applied since the proposed method uses only forward calculations. In addition, AS is an effective subspace that can expand the vector of sensitivity coefficients with the lower number of dimension. Thus, the number of unknows is reduced from the original number of input parameters and the calculation cost is dramatically improved compared to the Lasso regression without AS. In this paper, we conducted ADS burnup calculations as a verification. We have shown how AS bases are obtained and the applicability of the proposed method.

Calculation of nuclear core parameters for HTTR; Report of summer holiday practical training 2021

Isogawa, Hiroki*; Naoi, Motomasa*; Yamasaki, Seiji*; Ho, H. Q.; Katayama, Kazunari*; Matsuura, Hideaki*; Fujimoto, Nozomu*; Ishitsuka, Etsuo

JAEA-Technology 2022-015, 18 Pages, 2022/07

JAEA-Technology-2022-015.pdf:1.37MB

As a summer holiday practical training 2021, the impact of 10 years long-term shutdown on critical control rod position of the HTTR and the delayed neutron fraction () of the VHTRC-1 core were investigated using Monte-Carlo MVP code. As a result, a long-term shutdown of 10 years caused the critical control rods of the HTTR to withdraw about 4.00.8 cm compared to 3.9 cm in the experiment. The change in critical control rods position of the HTTR is due to the change of some fission products such as Pu, Am, Pm, Sm, Gd. Regarding the calculation of the VHTRC-1 core, the value is underestimate of about 10% in comparison with the experiment value.

Depletion calculation of subcritical system with consideration of spontaneous fission reaction

Riyana, E. S.; Okumura, Keisuke; Sakamoto, Masahiro; Matsumura, Taichi; Terashima, Kenichi

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 59(4), p.424 - 430, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2021.1974970

Decrease of radionuclide sorption in hydrated cement systems by organic ligands; Comparative evaluation using experimental data and thermodynamic calculations for ISA/EDTA-actinide-cement systems

Ochs, M.*; Dolder, F.*; Tachi, Yukio

Applied Geochemistry, 136, p.105161_1 - 105161_11, 2022/01

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeochem.2021.105161

Various types of radioactive wastes and environments contain organic substances that can stabilize the aqueous complexes with radionuclides and therefore lead to a decrease of sorption. The present study focuses on testing a methodology to quantify sorption reduction factors (SRFs) in the presence of organic ligands for cement systems. Three approaches for the estimation of SRFs; (1) analogy with solubility enhancement factors, (2) radionuclide speciation based on the thermodynamic calculations, and (3) experimental sorption data in ternary systems, were coupled and tested for the representative organic ligands (ISA and EDTA) and selected key radionuclides (actinides). Our approach allows to critically evaluate the dependence of SRFs for various systems on the chosen method of quantification, in accordance with the data availability for a given systems. The reliable SRFs can only be derived from the sorption measurements in ternary systems. SRF often need to be derived in the absence of such direct evidence, and estimations need to be made based on analogies and speciation information. However, such estimates may be subject to substantial uncertainties.

From recent RPT review articles; Medical application of particle and heavy ion transport code system PHITS

Furuta, Takuya

Igaku Butsuri, 41(4), P. 194, 2021/12

https://doi.org/10.11323/jjmp.41.4_194

Number of medical uses of Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS) has been increased due to the recent high demands of medical use of radiations. The summary of such research works was described in the review article on medical application of Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System PHITS published in Radiological Physics and Technology in 2021. There was a request from the editorial board of Japan Society of Medical Physics (JSMP) for writing an introductory article of this article in their internal journal. The research works on medical applications described in the review article, useful functions for medical application in PHITS, and newly opened user forum of PHITS have been introduced.

Re-examinations of MA fuel composition for accelerator-driven system and its heat removal

Sugawara, Takanori; Moriguchi, Daisuke*; Ban, Yasutoshi; Tsubata, Yasuhiro; Takano, Masahide; Nishihara, Kenji

JAEA-Research 2021-008, 63 Pages, 2021/10

JAEA-Research-2021-008.pdf:4.43MB

This study aims to perform the neutronics calculations for accelerator-driven system (ADS) with a new fuel composition based on the SELECT process developed by Japan Atomic Energy Agency because the previous studies had used the ideal MA (minor actinide) fuel composition without uranium and rare earth elements. Through the neutronics calculations, it is shown that two calculation cases, with/without neptunium, satisfy the design criteria. Although the new fuel composition includes uranium and rare earth elements, the ADS core with the new fuel composition is feasible and consistent with the partitioning and transmutation (P&T) cycle. Based on the new fuel composition, the heat removal during fuel powder storage and fuel assembly assembling is evaluated. For the fuel powder storage, it is found that a cylindrical tube container with a length of 500 [mm] and a diameter of 11 - 21 [mm] should be stored under water. For the fuel assembly assembling, CFD analysis indicates that the cladding tube temperature would satisfy the criterion if the inlet velocity of air is larger than 0.5 [m/s]. Through these studies, the new fuel composition which is consistent with the P&T cycle is obtained and the heat removal with the latest conditions is investigated. It is also shown that the new fuel composition can be practically handled with respect to heat generation, which is one of the most difficult points in handling MA fuel.

HTTR burnup characteristic analysis with detailed axial burning region using MVP-BURN

Ikeda, Reiji*; Ho, H. Q.; Nagasumi, Satoru; Ishii, Toshiaki; Hamamoto, Shimpei; Nakano, Yumi*; Ishitsuka, Etsuo; Fujimoto, Nozomu*

JAEA-Technology 2021-015, 32 Pages, 2021/09

JAEA-Technology-2021-015.pdf:2.74MB

Burnup calculation of the HTTR considering temperature distribution and detailed burning regions was carried out using MVP-BURN code. The results show that the difference in k, as well as the difference in average density of some main isotopes, is insignificant between the cases of uniform temperature and detailed temperature distribution. However, the difference in local density is noticeable, being 6% and 8% for U and Pu, respectively, and even 30% for the burnable poison B. Regarding the division of burning regions to more detail, the change of k is also small of 0.6%k/k or less. The small burning region gives a detailed distribution of isotopes such as U, Pu, and B. As a result, the effect of graphite reflector and the burnup behavior could be evaluated more clearly compared with the previous study.

Mesh effect around burnable poison rod of cell model for HTTR fuel block

Fujimoto, Nozomu*; Fukuda, Kodai*; Honda, Yuki*; Tochio, Daisuke; Ho, H. Q.; Nagasumi, Satoru; Ishii, Toshiaki; Hamamoto, Shimpei; Nakano, Yumi*; Ishitsuka, Etsuo

JAEA-Technology 2021-008, 23 Pages, 2021/06

JAEA-Technology-2021-008.pdf:2.62MB

The effect of mesh division around the burnable poison rod on the burnup calculation of the HTTR core was investigated using the SRAC code system. As a result, the mesh division inside the burnable poison rod does not have a large effect on the burnup calculation, and the effective multiplication factor is closer to the measured value than the conventional calculation by dividing the graphite region around the burnable poison rod into a mesh. It became clear that the mesh division of the graphite region around the burnable poison rod is important for more appropriately evaluating the burnup behavior of the HTTR core..

Stochastic estimation of radionuclide composition in wastes generated at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station using Bayesian inference

Sugiyama, Daisuke*; Nakabayashi, Ryo*; Tanaka, Shingo*; Koma, Yoshikazu; Takahatake, Yoko

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 58(4), p.493 - 506, 2021/04

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2021.1884137

Benchmarks of depletion and decay heat calculation between MENDEL and MARBLE

Yokoyama, Kenji; Lahaye, S.*

Proceedings of Joint International Conference on Supercomputing in Nuclear Applications + Monte Carlo 2020 (SNA + MC 2020), p.109 - 116, 2020/10

CEA/DEN/DM2S/SERMA and JAEA/NSEC are working on benchmarks for burnup, isotopic concentrations and decay heat calculations in the collaboration framework between both organisms. Both actors of this benchmark are independently developing their own simulation code systems for computing quantities of interest in nuclear fuel cycle domain: MENDEL in CEA and MARBLE in JAEA. The purpose of the benchmark is to verify each system by comparing both calculation results on specific applications. MENDEL uses a several solvers for the resolution of Bateman equation. Runge-Kutta method or Chebyshev Rational Approximation method (CRAM) are used for irradiation computations. An analytical solver can also be used for decay calculations. MARBLE can use Krylov subspace method or CRAM method. As the first phase of the benchmark, we compared the calculated results of decay heat and isotropic concentrations following by a Pu-239 fast fission pulse. We applied nuclear data from three libraries: (1) JEFF-3.1.1, (2) JENDL/DDF-2015 + JENDL/FPY-2011, and (3) ENDF/B-VII.1. Nuclear data and burnup chain were generated from these libraries independently on each system. We confirmed that the results for both systems were in very good agreement with each other. Numerical results were also compared to experimental data. As the second phase of the benchmark, we are proceeding with a burnup calculation benchmark of MENDEL and MARBLE using the nuclear data and burnup chain provided by ORLIBJ33, which is a set of cross-section data based on JENDL-3.3 for ORIGEN-2 code system. We will also compare with calculation results by the ORIGEN-2 code with ORLIBJ33. Since the series of ORLIB, that is, ORLIBJ32, ORLIBJ33, and ORLIBJ40, have been widely used especially in Japan for many years, the comparison with ORLIB is effective for confirming the performance of MENDEL and MARBLE.