Survey on research and development status of Japanese small modular reactors in OECD/NEA activities (2022-2023)

Takeda, Takeshi; Shibata, Taiju

JAEA-Review 2024-040, 29 Pages, 2024/09

JAEA-Review-2024-040.pdf:1.33MB

An important theme of Japan's 6th strategic energy plan is to indicate the energy policy path towards carbon neutrality by 2050. Policy responses for Japan's nuclear energy research and development (R&D) towards 2030 contain the demonstrations of technologies for small modular reactors (SMRs) through international cooperation by 2030. In light of this energy plan, basic policy initiatives over the next 10 years have been compiled to realize Green Transformation (GX), which simultaneously achieves decarbonization and economic growth. Looking overseas, activities of SMR R&D are active internationally, mainly in the US, Canada, Europe, China, and Russia. These activities are not only by heavy industry manufactures and R&D institutes, but also by venture companies. Under these circumstances, the NEA CSNI has gathered an Expert Group on SMRs (EGSMR) to help estimate the safety effects of SMRs. The EGSMR efforts required the submission of responses to several questionnaires whose main purpose was to collect the latest information on the efforts of SMR deployment and research. The first author of this report responded to this based on information from Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. as well as JAEA. Most of the responses from Japan to the questionnaires are the information that serves as the basis of CSNI Technical Opinion Paper No. 21 (TOP-21). In this report, the Japan's publicly available responses to the questionnaires arranged and additional information are explained, which complements some of the content of the TOP-21. In this manner, the investigation results of R&D related to SMR in Japan, focusing on the EGSMR activities (2022-2023), are summarized. The target of this report is to provide useful information for future discussions on international cooperation concerning SMR as well as nuclear power field human resources development internationally and domestically.

Design study of a neutral beam injector for fusion DEMO plant at JAERI

Inoue, Takashi; Hanada, Masaya; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Nishio, Satoshi; Sakamoto, Keishi; Sato, Masayasu; Taniguchi, Masaki; Tobita, Kenji; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; DEMO Plant Design Team

Fusion Engineering and Design, 81(8-14), p.1291 - 1297, 2006/02

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2005.08.074

Requirement and technical issues of the neutral beam inejctor (NBI) is discussed for fusion DEMO plant. The NBI for the fusion DEMO plant should be high efficiency, high energy and high reliability with long life. From the view point of high efficiency, use of conventional electrostatic accelerator is realistic. Due to operation under radiation environment, vacuum insulation is essential in the accelerator. According to the insulation design guideline, it was clarified that the beam energy of 1.52 MeV is possible in the accelerator. Development of filamentless, and cesium free ion source is required, based on the existing high current/high current density negative ion production technology. The gas neutralization is not applicable due to its low efficiency (60%). R&D on an advanced neutralization scheme such as plasma neutralization (efficiency: 80%) is required. Recently, development of cw high power semiconductor laser is in progress. The paper shows a conceptual design of a high efficiency laser neutralizer utilizing the new semiconductor laser array.

R&D on a high energy accelerator and a large negative ion source for ITER

Inoue, Takashi; Taniguchi, Masaki; Morishita, Takatoshi; Dairaku, Masayuki; Hanada, Masaya; Imai, Tsuyoshi*; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Sakamoto, Keishi; Seki, Takayoshi*; Watanabe, Kazuhiro

Nuclear Fusion, 45(8), p.790 - 795, 2005/08

https://doi.org/10.1088/0029-5515/45/8/004

The R&D of a 1 MeV accelerator and a large negative ion source have been carried out at JAERI. The paper presents following progress as a step toward ITER NB system. (1) Accelerator R&D: According to success in improvement of voltage holding capability, the acceleration test of H ions up to 1 MeV class energy is in progress. H ion beams of 1 MeV, 100 mA class have been generated with a substantial beam current density (100 A/m), and the current density is still increasing by the ion source tuning. (2) Large ion source R&D: One of major causes that limited the NB injection performance was spatial unifomity of negative ion production in existing negative-ion based NB systems. The present study revealed that the negative ions produced in the extraction region of the source were locally destructed by fast electrons leaking through magnetic filter. Some countermeasures and their test results are also described.

R&D on high power negative ion sources and accelerators for a neutral beam injector

Inoue, Takashi

JAERI-Research 2005-006, 87 Pages, 2005/03

JAERI-Research-2005-006.pdf:10.53MB

Negative ion sources and accelerators have been developed toward the ITER neutral beam injector (NBI). According to an analysis of negative ion surface production, the "KAMABOKO" ion source has been developed maximizing its volume/surface ratio, for fast electron confinement followed by enhancement of atomic density. An "external filter" is equipped in the source, to suppress ion destruction by the fast electrons with efficient diffusion of the atoms to ion extraction region. H ions of 300 A/m was extracted at the pressure of 0.3 Pa. For the accelerator, vacuum insulation technology has been developed since insulation gas such as SF is not applicable under radiation environment. Considering pressure in the accelerator (0.020.2 Pa), insulation guideline has been developed for both vacuum arc and glow discharges. Reduction of electric field stress at triple junction was effective to prevent flashover along insulator surface. H ion beams of 900 keV and 80 A/m (total ion current: 0.11 A) were obtained for several hundred shots.

Investigation of photo neutralization efficiency of high intensity H beam with Nd:YAG laser in J-PARC

Tomisawa, Tetsuo; Akikawa, Hisashi; Sato, Susumu; Ueno, Akira; Kondo, Yasuhiro; Oigawa, Hiroyuki; Sasa, Toshinobu; Hasegawa, Kazuo; Lee, S.*; Igarashi, Zenei*; et al.

Proceedings of 7th European Workshop on Beam Diagnostics and Instrumentation for Particle Accelerators (DIPAC 2005), p.275 - 277, 2005/00

http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/Accelconf/d05/PAPERS/POW018.PDF

The photo neutralization method with Nd:YAG laser for negative hydrogen ions has been expected as an available candidate for the transverse beam profile measurement. The fraction of photo detached electron can also be used for charge exchange procedure to extract very low power proton beam for Transmutation Experimental Facility in J-PARC. The laser system has advantages of maintenance and radiation hardness in high intensity proton accelerators. In order to establish the low power beam extraction system and beam profile monitor, the photo neutralization efficiency must be surveyed in practical beam line with high intensity H beam. In this paper, an experimental set-up and preliminary results of photo neutralization method for intense H beam in J-PARC MEBT1 are described.

High recycling steady H-mode regime in the JFT-2M Tokamak

Kamiya, Kensaku; Bakhtiari, M.; Kasai, Satoshi; Kawashima, Hisato; Kusama, Yoshinori; Miura, Yukitoshi; Ogawa, Hiroaki; Oyama, Naoyuki; Sato, Masayasu; Shinohara, Koji; et al.

Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, 46(5A), p.A157 - A163, 2004/05

https://doi.org/10.1088/0741-3335/46/5A/017

A new operating regime, High Recycling Steady (HRS) H-mode regime, has been discovered on JFT-2M, which is easily reproduced under the wall fueling from the boronized first wall. Accompanying the HRS H-mode transition, the coherent magnetic and floating potential fluctuations are seen on magnetic probes at vessel wall and Langmuir probe in SOL, respectively. These coherent fluctuations have a frequency of the order of 10-100 kHz with significant variation, which is recognized to be important to enhance the particle transport. The HRS can be seen even at 3 with /0.4 for the fixed delta0.4 in the standard single-null divertor configuration. Recent experimental results from JFT-2M show that the plasma shape also seems to play an important role in determining the type of ELMs. The HRS regime can be extended up to delta0.75 and 2.6 in the double-null configuration, while lower delta boundary exists at delta0.3 with moderate 4 even at high recycling and/or density condition of /0.4.

Experimental comparison between plasma and gas neutralization of high-energy negative ion beams

Hanada, Masaya; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Inoue, Takashi; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; Imai, Tsuyoshi

Review of Scientific Instruments, 75(5), p.1813 - 1815, 2004/05

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1699462

A proof-of-principle test on plasma neutralizer, that is capable of enhancing a system efficiency of neutral beam injector for future fusion reactors, has been carried out. A 2 m long and 0.6 m diamater neutralizer with multicusp magnet line was used, improving the confinement of primary electrons flowed from both ends of the neutralizer by a pair of magnets. This improvement produced relatively high density Ar plasma of 10 - 10cm at low operating pressure of 0.002 Pa - 0.03 Pa. In the neutralization experiment, 200 keV H ion beams were neturalized with the plasms and gas. Compared with the gas neutralization, the maximaum neutralization efficiency by the plasma was 6% higher than that by the gas. Further, an optimum Ar gas line density for maximizing the neutralization efficiency was 30% lower than that by the gas. These results are in good agreements with results analyzed from the cross-section data for neturalization. Thus, it was experimentally verified that the neutralization effiency can be enhanced at relatively low line density by using the plasma.

Accelerator R&D for JT-60U and ITER NB systems

Inoue, Takashi; Hanada, Masaya; Iga, Takashi*; Imai, Tsuyoshi; Kashiwagi, Mieko; Kawai, Mikito; Morishita, Takatoshi; Taniguchi, Masaki; Umeda, Naotaka; Watanabe, Kazuhiro; et al.

Fusion Engineering and Design, 66-68, p.597 - 602, 2003/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0920-3796(03)00156-X

The neutral beam (NB) injection has been one of the most promising methods for plasma heating and current drive in tokamak fusion devices. JAERI has developed high energy electrostatic accelerators for the NB systems in JT-60U and ITER. Recent progress on this R&D are as follows: 1) In the JT-60U NB system, some of the beams has been deflected due to distorted electric field in the accelerator, resulting in an excess heat load on the NB port. By correcting the electric field, a continuous injection of H beam was succeeded for 10 s with the NB power of 2.6 MW at 355 keV. 2) To increase the beam energy, a metal structure called stress ring was designed. The ring reduces electric field concentration at the triple junction point (interface between metal and dielectric insulator inside vacuum). Initial test of the accelerators with the stress rings has shown higher voltage hold off performance in both accelerators for JT-60U and ITER R&D than that without rings.

Conceptual design of cesium removal device for ITER NBI maintenance

Oka, Kiyoshi; Shibanuma, Kiyoshi

JAERI-Tech 2003-004, 57 Pages, 2003/03

JAERI-Tech-2003-004.pdf:2.36MB

Cesium is required in order to generate a stable negative ion of hydrogen in an ion source of the neutral beam injector (NBI), which is one of the plasma-heating devices for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). After long time operation of NBI, the cesium deposits to the insulators supporting the electrode. Due to the deterioration of the insulation resistance, the continuous operation of the NBI will be difficult. In addition, the NBI device is activated by neutron from D-T plasma, so that a periodic removal and cleaning of the cesium on the insulators by remote handling is required. A study of the cesium removal scenario and device is therefore required considering remote handling. In this report, a cesium removal procedure and conceptual design of the cesium removal device using laser ablation technique are studied, and the feasibility of laser ablation is shown.

Size-selective extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy of free selenium clusters

Nagaya, Kiyonobu*; Yao, Makoto*; Hayakawa, Tetsuichiro*; Omasa, Yoshinori*; Kajihara, Yukio*; Ishii, Masashi*; Katayama, Yoshinori

Physical Review Letters, 89(24), p.243401_1 - 243401_4, 2002/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.243401

Recently, we proposed a new method for the size-selective EXAFS(Extended X-ray absorption fine structure) of neutral-free culsters, in which not only the X-ray absorption process but also the deexitation process are utilized as the structural information. In order to verify this method experimentally, we have developed the synchronous measurements of EXAFS and photoelectron photoion coincidence and carried them out for a Se cluster beam by utilizing the third-generation intense X-ray source. The EXAFS spectra for Se small clusters have been obtained and compared critically with theoretical predictions.