Development of a hybrid method for evaluating the long-term structural soundness of nuclear reactor buildings using response monitoring and damage imaging technologies (Contract research); FY2021 Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project

Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; Tohoku University*

JAEA-Review 2022-071, 123 Pages, 2023/03

JAEA-Review-2022-071.pdf:6.07MB

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 FY2021. 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 FY2021, this report summarizes the research results of the "Development of a hybrid method for evaluating the long-term structural soundness of nuclear reactor buildings using response monitoring and damage imaging technologies" conducted in FY2021. The present study aims to develop an evaluation method necessary to obtain a perspective on the long-term structural soundness of accident-damaged reactor buildings, where accessibility to work sites is extremely limited due to high radiation dose rate and high contamination. In FY2021, the first year of the three-year plan, the following research items were undertaken by clarifying specific research methods, setting research directions, making necessary preparations, and conducting some tests and other activities.

Clarification of debris formation conditions on the basis of the sampling data and experimental study using simulated fuel debris and reinforcement of the analytical results of severe accident scenario (Contract Research); FY2021 Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project

Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; University of Fukui*

JAEA-Review 2022-046, 108 Pages, 2023/01

JAEA-Review-2022-046.pdf:6.25MB

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 FY2021. 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 FY2021, this report summarizes the research results of the "Clarification of debris formation conditions on the basis of the sampling data and experimental study using simulated fuel debris and reinforcement of the analytical results of severe accident scenario" conducted in FY2021. The research on fuel debris so far is based on TMI-2 accident that is typical PWR accident but resent scenario analysis of sever accident progression and sampling data of the in reactor materials predict that fuel debris is diversity and piled up complicatedly depending on the unit and in reactor position. We are necessary to presume the thermodynamic condition of fuel debris during the accident in order to estimate accumulation state of debris. However the Forward analysis cannot explain

Liquid phase sintering of alumina-silica co-doped cerium dioxide CeO ceramics

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

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceramint.2022.09.295

Human resource development related to remote control technology for monitoring inside RPV pedestal during retrieval of fuel debris (Contract research); FY2021 Nuclear Energy Science & Technology and Human Resource Development Project

Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science; The University of Tokyo*

JAEA-Review 2022-032, 102 Pages, 2022/12

JAEA-Review-2022-032.pdf:9.83MB

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 FY2021. 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 FY2019, this report summarizes the research results of the "Human resource development related to remote control technology for monitoring inside RPV pedestal during retrieval of fuel debris" conducted in FY2021. The present study aims to construct a monitoring platform for understanding the status inside a reactor during fuel debris removal, and measurement and visualization by sensors moving on the platform. In addition, to develop research personnel through research education by participating in such research projects, classroom lectures, and facility tours is also a goal of this project. In FY2021, we mainly worked on improving the base design and technology development that we had worked on in the previous year, and we also prepared for integration experiments.

Experiment of incineration for Trans-Uranic (TRU) wastes containing chlorides

Yamashita, Kiyoto; Yokoyama, Aya*; Takagai, Yoshitaka*; Maki, Shota; Yokosuka, Kazuhiro; Fukui, Masahiro; Iemura, Keisuke

JAEA-Technology 2022-020, 106 Pages, 2022/10

JAEA-Technology-2022-020.pdf:4.77MB

Radioactive solid wastes generated by Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station disaster may contain high levels of salt from the tsunami and seawater deliberately released into the area. It is assumed that polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products may be used for decommissioning work and for containment of radioactive wastes in the future. Among the method of handling them, incineration is one method that needs to be investigated as it is good method for reduction and stabilization of wastes. But in order to dispose of Trans-Uranic (TRU) solid waste containing chlorides, it is necessary to select the structure and materials of the facility based on the information such as the movement of nuclides and chlorides in the waste gas treating system and the corrosion of equipment due to chlorides. Therefore, we decided to get various data necessary to design a study of the incineration facilities. And we decided to examine the transfer behavior of chlorides to the waste gas treatment system, the corrosion-resistance of materials in the incineration facilities, and the distribution survey of plutonium in them obtained using the Plutonium-contaminated Waste Treatment Facility (PWTF), Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engineering Laboratories, which is a unique incinerating facility in Japan. This report describes the transfer behavior of chlorides in the waste gas treatment system, the evaluation of corrosion-resistance materials and the distribution survey of plutonium in the incineration facilities obtained by these tests using the Plutonium-contaminated Waste Treatment Facility, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engineering Laboratories.

Preliminary deformation analysis of the reactor vessel due to core debris accumulation onto the reactor vessel bottom for sodium-cooled fast reactor

Onoda, Yuichi; Yamano, Hidemasa

Proceedings of 12th Japan-Korea Symposium on Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics and Safety (NTHAS12) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2022/10

In Japan, sodium-cooled fast reactor design takes In-Vessel Retention (IVR) strategy to stably cool damaged core materials in the reactor vessel during a severe accident with various design measures. Although a possibility to fail IVR is extremely low, a probabilistic risk assessment study needs a wide variety of scenarios including the IVR failure. Therefore, in order to study a wide range of event spectra related to stable cooling of debris in the reactor vessel, this study numerically investigated the deformation and failure behavior of the reactor vessel due to the debris deposited onto the skirt of the core catcher using the FINAS-STAR structural analysis code. The analyses are conducted in two cases of power density with the aim of investigating failure conditions of the bottom of the reactor vessel. Reactor vessel deforms significantly when the temperature reaches about 1100 C and the reactor vessel reaches the failure criteria in high-power-density case.

Micro- to nano-scale areal heterogeneity in pore structure and mineral compositions of a sub-decimeter-sized Eagle Ford Shale

Wang, Q.*; Hu, Q.*; Zhao, C.*; Yang, X.*; Zhang, T.*; Ilavsky, J.*; Kuzmenko, I.*; Ma, B.*; Tachi, Yukio

International Journal of Coal Geology, 261, p.104093_1 - 104093_15, 2022/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coal.2022.104093

Development plan of failure mitigation technologies for improving resilience of nuclear structures

Kasahara, Naoto*; Yamano, Hidemasa; Nakamura, Izumi*; Demachi, Kazuyuki*; Sato, Takuya*; Ichimiya, Masakazu*

Transactions of 26th International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (SMiRT-26) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2022/07

Utilizing fracture control, we are developing a technology to suppress the expansion of damage caused by an event that exceeds the design assumption. We made a plan to develop three issues; (1) Technology for mitigating failure consequence at extremely high temperatures, (2) Technology for mitigating failure consequence against excessive earthquakes, and (3) Methodology for improving reactor structure resilience.

Basic study on seismic respnse of soil-structure interaction system using equivalent linear three-dimensional FEM analysis of reactor building

Ichihara, Yoshitaka*; Nakamura, Naohiro*; Nabeshima, Kunihiko*; Choi, B.; Nishida, Akemi

Kozo Kogaku Rombunshu, B, 68B, p.271 - 283, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.3130/aijjse.68B.0_271

This paper aims to evaluate the applicability of the equivalent linear analysis method for reinforced concrete, which uses frequency-independent hysteretic damping, to the seismic design of reactor building of the nuclear power plant. To achieve this, we performed three-dimensional FEM analyses of the soil-structure interaction system, focusing on the nonlinear and equivalent linear seismic behavior of a reactor building under an ideal soil condition. From these results, the method of equivalent analysis showed generally good correspondence with the method of the nonlinear analysis, confirming the effectiveness. Moreover, the method tended to lower the structural stiffness compared to the nonlinear analysis model. Therefore, in the evaluation of the maximum shear strain, we consider that the results were more likely to be higher than the results of nonlinear analysis.

Current status and upgrading strategies of J-PARC Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) and related components

Teshigawara, Makoto; Nakamura, Mitsutaka; Kinsho, Michikazu; Soyama, Kazuhiko

JAEA-Technology 2021-022, 208 Pages, 2022/02

JAEA-Technology-2021-022.pdf:14.28MB

The Materials and Life science experimental Facility (MLF) is an accelerator driven pulsed spallation neutron and muon source with a 1 MW proton beam. The construction began in 2004, and we started beam operation in 2008. Although problems such as exudation of cooling water from the target container have occurred, as of April 2021, the proton beam power has reached up to 700 kW gradually, and stable operation is being performed. In recent years, the operation experience of the rated 1 MW has been steadily accumulated. Several issues such as the durability of the target container have been revealed according to the increase in the operation time. Aiming at making a further improvement of MLF, we summarized the current status of achievements for the design values, such as accelerator technology (LINAC and RCS), neutron and muon source technology, beam transportation of these particles, detection technology, and neutron and muon instruments. Based on the analysis of the current status, we tried to extract improvement points for upgrade of MLF. Through these works, we will raise new proposals that promote the upgrade of MLF, attracting young people. We would like to lead to the further success of researchers and engineers who will lead the next generation.