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Yoshida, Kazuo; Hiyama, Mina*; Tamaki, Hitoshi
JAEA-Research 2024-007, 24 Pages, 2024/08
An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high-level radioactive liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents caused by the loss of cooling function at a fuel reprocessing plant. In this case, volatile radioactive materials, such as ruthenium (Ru) are released from the tanks with water and nitric-acid mixed vapor into the atmosphere. Accurate quantitative estimation of released Ru is one of the important issues for risk assessment of those facilities. It has been observed experimentally that volatility of RuO is suppressed by HNO
generated by HNO
radiolysis. The analysis of chemical reactions of NO
including HNO
and HNO
in the waste tank is essential to simulate of these phenomena. To resolve this issue, an analytical approach has been attempted to couple dynamically two computer codes SHAWED and SCHERN. The simulation of boiling behavior in the tank is conducted with SHAWED. SCHERN simulates chemical behaviors of HNO
, HNO
and NO
in the tank. A programmatic coupling algorithm and a trial simulation of the accident are presented in this report.
Yamagishi, Isao; Hato, Shinji*; Nishihara, Kenji; Tsubata, Yasuhiro; Sagawa, Yusuke*
JAEA-Data/Code 2024-002, 63 Pages, 2024/07
Adsorption columns filled with zeolite are used to treat contaminated water containing radioactive cesium generated by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident. As the contaminated water treatment progresses, the radioactive cesium in the adsorption column becomes highly concentrated, and the adsorption column becomes a high radiation source. To evaluate the radiation effects such as decay heat and radiolytic hydrogen production in the adsorption column, the concentration of radioactive cesium in the adsorption column is necessary, but since it is difficult to evaluate the concentration by measurement, it is estimated by simulation. In this research, a zeolite column adsorption dynamics simulation (Zeolite Adsorption Column: ZAC) code was developed to calculate the concentration of radioactive materials such as radioactive cesium in a zeolite filled adsorption column when they are injected into the column. The code was validated through comparison of calculation results with existing codes and experimental results of small column tests. This report presents the details of the model, the handling of the code, and the validity of the results for the developed code.
Irisawa, Eriko; Kato, Chiaki
Journal of Nuclear Materials, 591, p.154914_1 - 154914_10, 2024/04
Times Cited Count:2 Percentile:90.90(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)The amount of corrosion of austenitic stainless-steel R-SUS304ULC was evaluated considering the changes in solution composition and boiling during actual concentration operations. Austenitic stainless-steel R-SUS304ULC is the structural material of the highly radioactive liquid waste concentrator in Japanese spent fuel reprocessing plant, which treats highly corrosive nitric acid solutions during enrichment operations. The study results show that it is necessary to focus on nitric acid concentrations, oxidizing metal ion concentrations, and decompression boiling as factors that accelerate the corrosion rate of stainless steel because of cathodic reaction activation.
Tada, Kenichi; Endo, Tomohiro*
Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 60(11), p.1397 - 1405, 2023/11
Times Cited Count:1 Percentile:34.39(Nuclear Science & Technology)The probability table method is a well-known method for addressing self-shielding effects in the unresolved resonance region. A long computational time is required to generate the probability table. The effective way to reduce the generation time of the probability table is the reduction of the number of ladders. The purpose of this study is the estimation of the optimal number of ladders using the statistical uncertainty in the probability table. To this end, the statistical uncertainty quantification method of the probability table was developed and the convergence behavior of the statistical uncertainty was investigated. The product of the probability table and the average cross section was considered the target of the statistical uncertainty. The convergence rate was affected by the average level spacing and reduced neutron width. The generation time of the probability table was less than half when the input parameter was changed from the number of ladders to the tolerance value.
Miura, Takatomo; Kudo, Atsunari; Koyama, Daisuke; Obu, Tomoyuki; Samoto, Hirotaka
Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC2023) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2023/10
Tokai Reprocessing Plant (TRP) had reprocessed 1,140 tons of spent fuel discharged from commercial reactors (BWR, PWR) and Advanced Thermal Reactor "Fugen" from 1977 to 2007. TRP had entered decommissioning stage in 2018. In order to reduce the risk of High Active Liquid Waste (HALW) held at the facility, the vitrification of HALW is given top priority. HALW generated from reprocessing of spent fuel contains not only fission products (FPs) but also trace amounts of uranium (U) and plutonium (Pu) within the liquid and insoluble residues (sludge). Under normal conditions, concentrations of U and Pu in HALW are very low so that it can not reach criticality. Since FPs with high neutron absorption effect coexists in HALW, even if the cooling function is lost due to serious accident and HALW evaporates to dryness, it is considered that criticality would not been reached. In order to confirm this estimation quantitatively, criticality safety evaluations were carried out for the increase of U and Pu concentrations by evaporation of HALW to the point of dryness. In this evaluation, infinite multiplication factors were calculated for each of solution system and sludge system of HALW with respect to the concentration change through evaporation to dryness. It is confirmed it could not reach criticality. The abundance ratios of U, Pu and FPs were set conservatively based on analytical data and ORIGEN calculation results. Multiplation factors for two-layer infinite slab model of solution and sludge systems of HALW were also calculated, and it was confirmed it could not reached criticality. In conclusion, the result was gaind that there could be no criticality even in the process through evaporation to dryness of HALW in TRP.
Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Hiyama, Mina*
JAEA-Research 2023-001, 26 Pages, 2023/05
An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high-level radioactive liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents caused by the loss of cooling function at a fuel reprocessing plant. In this case, volatile radioactive materials, such as ruthenium (Ru) are released from the tanks with water and nitric-acid mixed vapor into the atmosphere. Accurate quantitative estimation of released Ru is one of the important issues for risk assessment of those facilities. To resolve this issue, an analytical approach has been developed using computer simulation programs to assess the radioactive source term from those facilities. The proposed approach consists analyses with three computer programs. At first, the simulation of boiling behavior in the HLLW tank is conducted with SHAWED code. Next step, the thermal-hydraulic behavior in the facility building is simulated with MELCOR code based on the results at the first step simulation such as flowed out mixed steam flow rate, temperature and volatilized Ru from the tank. The final analysis step is carried out for estimating amount of released radioactive materials with SCHERN computer code which simulates chemical behaviors of nitric acid, nitrogen oxide and Ru based on the condition also simulated MELCOR. Series of sample simulations of the accident at a hypothetical typical facility are presented with the data transfer between those codes in this report.
Tada, Kenichi; Yamamoto, Akio*; Kunieda, Satoshi; Nagaya, Yasunobu
JAEA-Data/Code 2022-009, 208 Pages, 2023/02
The nuclear data processing code has an important role to connect evaluated nuclear data libraries and neutronics calculation codes. Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has developed the nuclear data processing code FRENDY since 2013 to generate cross section files from evaluated nuclear data libraries, such as JENDL, ENDF/B, JEFF, and TENDL. The first version of FRENDY was released in 2019. FRENDY version 1 generates ACE files which are used for continuous energy Monte Carlo codes such as PHITS, Serpent, and MCNP. FRENDY version 2 generates multi-group neutron cross-section files from ACE files. The other major improvements are as follows: (1) uncertainty quantification for the probability tables of the unresolved resonance cross-section; (2) perturbation of the ACE file for the uncertainty quantification using a continuous Monte Carlo code; (3) modification of the ENDF-6 formatted nuclear data file. This report describes an overview of the nuclear data processing methods and input instructions for FRENDY.
Togawa, Orihiko; Okura, Takehisa; Kimura, Masanori
JAEA-Review 2022-049, 76 Pages, 2023/01
Before construction and after operation of nuclear facilities, environmental consequence assessments are conducted for normal operation and an emergency. These assessments mainly aim at confirming safety for the public around the facilities and producing relief for them. Environmental consequence assessments are carried out using observations/ measurements by environmental monitoring and/or model predictions by calculation models, sometimes using either of which and at other times using both them, according to the situations and necessities. First, this report investigates methods, roles, merits/demerits and relationship between observations/measurements and model predictions which are used for environmental consequence assessments of nuclear facilities, especially holding up a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Rokkasho, Aomori as an example. Next, it explains representative examples of utilization of data on observations/measurements and results on model predictions, and considers points of attention at using them. Finally, the report describes future direction, for example, improvements of observations/measurements and model predictions, and fusion of both them.
Vauchy, R.; Hirooka, Shun; Watanabe, Masashi; Yokoyama, Keisuke; Sunaoshi, Takeo*; Yamada, Tadahisa*; Nakamichi, Shinya; Murakami, Tatsutoshi
Ceramics International, 49(2), p.3058 - 3065, 2023/01
Times Cited Count:11 Percentile:70.86(Materials Science, Ceramics)Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Hiyama, Mina*
JAEA-Research 2022-011, 37 Pages, 2022/12
An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents at a fuel reprocessing plant. Two major mechanisms are expected for fission products (FPs) transfer from liquid to vapor phase. One is non-volatiles FPs transfer in the form of mists to the vapor phase in the tank, the other is volatilization of such as Ruthenium. These FPs transferred to the vapor phase in the tank could be released with water and nitric-acid mixed steam and NO gas flow to the environment. NO
is generated from denitration of nitrate fission products during dry out phase. These phenomena occurred in this accident originate from the liquid waste boiling in the tank. It is essential for the risk assessment of this accident to simulate thermo-hydraulic and chemical behaviors in the waste tank quantitatively with a versatile computer program. The SHAWED (
imulation of
igh-level radio
ctive
aste
vaporation and
ryness) has been developed to realize these requirements. In this report, detailed description of major analytical models is explained based on the features of this accident, and some simulation examples are also described for the use in an actual risk assessment.
Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; The University of Tokyo*
JAEA-Review 2022-015, 119 Pages, 2022/09
The Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science (CLADS), Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), had been conducting the Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project (hereafter referred to "the Project") in FY2020. The Project aims to contribute to solving problems in the nuclear energy field represented by the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO). For this purpose, intelligence was collected from all over the world, and basic research and human resource development were promoted by closely integrating/collaborating knowledge and experiences in various fields beyond the barrier of conventional organizations and research fields. The sponsor of the Project was moved from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to JAEA since the newly adopted proposals in FY2018. On this occasion, JAEA constructed a new research system where JAEA-academia collaboration is reinforced and medium-to-long term research/development and human resource development contributing to the decommissioning are stably and consecutively implemented. Among the adopted proposals in FY2018, this report summarizes the research results of the "Analysis of microparticles generated by laser processing and development of a methodology for their nuclear identification" conducted from FY2018 to FY2021 (this contract was extended to FY2021). Since the final year of this proposal was FY2021, the results for four fiscal years were summarized. Although laser processing has various advantages, one well-known disadvantage is that it generates a large amount of microparticles during the processing. Therefore, the application of laser processing to decommissioning waste contaminated with radioactive materials has been hesitant because the mechanism generating the microparticles has not been fully understood.
Yamaguchi, Akinori*; Yokotsuka, Muneyuki*; Furuta, Masayo*; Kubota, Kazuo*; Fujine, Sachio*; Mori, Kenji*; Yoshida, Naoki; Amano, Yuki; Abe, Hitoshi
Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai Wabun Rombunshi (Internet), 21(4), p.173 - 182, 2022/09
Risk information obtained from probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of measures against severe accidents in nuclear facilities. The PRA methods used for reprocessing facilities are considered immature compared to those for nuclear power plants, and to make the methods mature, reducing the uncertainty of accident scenarios becomes crucial. In this paper, we summarized the results of literature survey on the event progression of evaporation to dryness caused by boiling of high-level liquid waste (HLLW) which is a severe accident in reprocessing facilities and migration behavior of associated radioactive materials. Since one of the important characteristics of Ru is its tendency to form volatile compounds over the course of the event progression, the migration behavior of Ru is categorized into four stages based on temperature. Although no Ru has been released in the waste in the high temperature region, other volatile elements such as Cs could be released. Sufficient experimental data, however, have not been obtained yet. It is, therefore, necessary to further clarify the migration behavior of radioactive materials that predominantly depends on temperature in this region.
Uchida, Mao*; Alzahrani, H.*; Shiono, Mikihito*; Sakai, Takaaki*; Matsushita, Kentaro; Ezure, Toshiki; Tanaka, Masaaki
Proceedings of 19th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-19) (Internet), 16 Pages, 2022/03
Gas entrainment from cover gas is one of key issues for sodium-cooled fast reactors design to prevent unexpected effects to core reactivity. A vortex model based evaluation method has been developed to evaluate the surface vortex gas core growth at the free surface in the reactor vessel. In this study, water experiments were performed to clarify the prediction accuracy for the vortex gas core growth during the vortex drift motion using a circulating water tunnel with an open flow channel test section. Gas core growth were predicted by applying the evaluation method to the numerical analyses performed in the same geometry of the experiments, and compared with the experimental results. It was observed the gas core growth became large at downstream region where downward velocity became large in experiment. However, the gas core length which were predicted from numerical result showed a discrepancy with the experimental result on the peak position and an overestimation of peak value.
Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Hiyama, Mina*
JAEA-Research 2021-013, 20 Pages, 2022/01
An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents caused by the loss of cooling function at a fuel reprocessing plant. In this case, volatile radioactive materials, such as ruthenium (Ru) are released from the tanks with water and nitric-acid mixed vapor into atmosphere. An idea has been proposed to implement a steam condenser as an accident countermeasure. This measure is expected to prevent nitric acid steam diffusing in facility building and to increase gaseous Ru trapping ratio into condensed water. A simulation study has been carried out with a hypothetical typical facility building to analyze the efficiency of steam condenser. In this study, SCHERN computer code simulates chemical behaviors of Ru in nitrogen oxide, nitric acid and water mixed vapor based on the conditions obtained from simulation with thermal-hydraulic computer code MELCOR. The effectiveness of steam condenser has been analyzed quantitively in preventing mixed vapor diffusion and gaseous Ru trapping effect. Some issues to be solved in analytical model has been also clarified in this study.
Ogawa, Hiroki; Hama, Yuki*; Asamori, Koichi; Ueda, Takumi*
Butsuri Tansa, 75, p.38 - 55, 2022/00
In the magnetotelluric (MT) method, so as to identify the subsurface resistivity structure, the apparent resistivity and phase profiles are calculated by transforming time-series data into spectral data. The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is well known as a new method of time-frequency analysis instead of the short-time Fourier transform. The CWT is superior in processing non-stationary wideband signals like the MT signal by adjusting the size of the wavelet according to the value of frequency. However, the calculation settings of the CWT, such as the type of basis function and the wavelet parameter, are often determined empirically because of the arbitrariness of the shape of the wavelet. Although there might be differences between the calculated MT responses and the true responses due to improper settings of the CWT, there are no detailed studies considering the effect of numerical errors derived from spectral transforms on MT data. In this study, focusing on the frequency band between 0.001 Hz and 1 Hz, we examined the optimum calculation settings of the CWT in processing MT data in terms of suppressing the numerical errors caused by the spectral transform of time-series data. We also show the validity of the proposed calculation settings by applying the CWT to MT survey data of different types. Superiority of the CWT with proposed settings is suggested especially when the signal-to-noise ratio of observed data is low. Consequently, the proposed calculation settings were confirmed to strike a balance between the resolutions of the time and frequency domains well and will therefore be effective in obtaining reliable MT responses.
Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Hiyama, Mina*
JAEA-Research 2021-005, 25 Pages, 2021/08
An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents caused by the loss of cooling function at a fuel reprocessing plant. In this case, volatile radioactive materials, such as ruthenium (Ru) are released from the tanks with water and nitric-acid mixed vapor into atmosphere. Accurate quantitative estimation of released Ru is one of the important issues for risk assessment of those facilities. To resolve this issue, an empirical correlation equation of Ru mass transfer coefficient across the vapor-liquid surface, which can be useful for quantitative simulation of Ru mitigating behavior, has been obtained from data analyses of small-scale experiments conducted to clarify gaseous Ru migrating behavior under steam-condensing condition. A simulation study has been also carried out with a hypothetical typical facility building successfully to demonstrate the feasibility of quantitative estimation of amount of Ru migrating in the facility using the obtained correlation equation implemented in SCHERN computer code which simulates chemical behaviors of nitrogen oxide based on the condition also simulated thermal-hydraulic computer code.
Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Hiyama, Mina*
JAEA-Data/Code 2021-008, 35 Pages, 2021/08
An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents caused by the loss of cooling function at a fuel reprocessing plant. In this case, volatile radioactive materials, such as ruthenium (Ru) are released from the tanks with water and nitric-acid mixed vapor into atmosphere. In addition to this, nitrogen oxides (NO) are also released formed by the thermal decomposition of metal nitrates of fission products (FP) in HLLW. It has been observed experimentally that NOx affects to the migration behavior of Ru at the anticipated atmosphere condition in cells and/or compartments of the facility building. Chemical reactions of NO
with water and nitric acid are also recognized as the complex phenomena to undergo simultaneously in the vapor and liquid phases. The analysis program, SCHERN has been under developed to simulate chemical behavior including Ru coupled with the thermo-hydraulic condition in the flow paths in the facility building. This technical guide for SCHERN-V2 presents the overview of covered accident, analytical models including newly developed models, differential equations for numerical solution, and user instructions.
Fujimoto, Nozomu*; Tada, Kenichi; Ho, H. Q.; Hamamoto, Shimpei; Nagasumi, Satoru; Ishitsuka, Etsuo
Annals of Nuclear Energy, 158, p.108270_1 - 108270_8, 2021/08
Times Cited Count:3 Percentile:34.89(Nuclear Science & Technology)Horita, Takuma; Yamagishi, Isao; Nagaishi, Ryuji; Kashiwaya, Ryunosuke*
JAEA-Technology 2021-012, 34 Pages, 2021/07
Waste mainly consisting of carbonate precipitates (carbonate slurry) from the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) and the improved ALPS at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Holdings, Inc. have been storing in the High Integrity Container (HIC). The supernatant solution of carbonate slurry contained in some of HICs were overflowed in April of 2015. The all of level of liquid in the HICs were investigated; however, almost of the HICs were under the level of overflow. The mechanism of overflow suggested to be depending on the difference of the properties of the carbonate slurry such as the retention/release characteristics of the bubbles. Therefore, in order to clarify the mechanism of leakage, the repeatability experiment was carried out by using simulated carbonate slurry. The simulated carbonate slurry was perpetrated by using the same cross-flow filter system of the actual ALPS. Moreover, the preparative conditions for the simulated carbonate slurry were the same as Mg/Ca concentration ratio in inlet water of the ALPS (raw water) and the ALPS operating conditions. The chemical characteristics of simulated carbonate slurries were revealed by ICP-AES, pH meter, etc. The density of the settled slurry layer tended to increase depending on the calcium concentration in the raw water. The bubble injection test was conducted in order to investigate the bubble retention/release behavior in the simulated carbonate slurry layer. The simulated carbonate slurry with high settling density, which was generated by high calcium concentration solution was revealed to retain the injected bubbles. Since the ratio of concentration calcium and magnesium during the carbonate slurry generation is assumed to affect the retention of bubbles in the slurry layer, the information on the composition of raw water is one of important factor for overflow of HICs.
Maruyama, Yu; Yoshida, Kazuo
Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai-Shi ATOMO, 63(7), p.517 - 522, 2021/07
no abstracts in English