Development of an continuous air monitor for the measurement of highly radioactive alpha-emitting particulates (-aerosols) under high humidity environment

Tsubota, Yoichi; Honda, Fumiya; Tokonami, Shinji*; Tamakuma, Yuki*; Nakagawa, Takahiro; Ikeda, Atsushi

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 1030, p.166475_1 - 166475_7, 2022/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2022.166475

In the long-lasting decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (1F), the dismantling of nuclear fuel debris (NFD) remaining in the damaged reactors is an unavoidable but significant issue with many technical difficulties. The dismantling is presumed to involve mechanical cutting, generating significant concentrations of particulates containing -radionuclides (-aerosols) that pose significant health risk upon inhalation. In order to minimize the radiation exposure of workers with -aerosols during the dismantling/decommissioning process at 1F, it is essential to monitor the concentration of -aerosols at the point of initial generation, i.e. inside the primary containment vessels (PCV) of the damaged reactors. Toward this end, an monitoring system for -aerosols ( alpha air monitor: IAAM) was developed and its technical performance was investigated under the conditions expected for the actual environments at 1F. IAAM was confirmed to fulfill four technical requirements: (1) steady operation under high humidity, (2) operation without using filters, (3) capability of measuring a high counting rate of -radiation, and (4) selective measurement of -radiation even under high radiation background with /-rays. IAAM is capable of selectively measuring -aerosols with a concentration of 3.3 10 Bq/cm or higher without saturation under a high humid environment (100%-relative humidity) and under high background with /-radiation (up to 100 mSv/h of -radiation). These results demonstrate promising potential of IAAM to be utilized as a reliable monitoring system for -aerosols during the dismantling of NFD, as well as the whole long-lasting decommissioning of 1F.

Investigations on distribution of radioactive substances owing to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident in the fiscal year 2020 (Contract research)

Group for Fukushima Mapping Project

JAEA-Technology 2021-025, 159 Pages, 2022/01

JAEA-Technology-2021-025.pdf:46.66MB

This report presents results of the investigations on the distribution-mapping project of radioactive substances owing to TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) conducted in FY2020. Car-borne surveys, a flat ground measurement using survey meters, a walk survey and an unmanned helicopter survey were carried out to obtain air dose rate data. Air dose rate distribution maps were created and temporal changes of the air dose rates were analyzed. Regarding radiocesium deposition into the ground, surveys on depth profile of radiocesium and in-situ measurements were performed. Based on these measurement results, effective half-lives of the temporal changes in the air dose rates and the deposition were evaluated. In the examination of scoring for classifying the importance of measurement points, a score map was created for Fukushima Prefecture and the 80 km zone from the FDNPS, and the factors causing changes in the score when monitoring data from multiple years were used were discussed. Using the Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach, we obtained maps that integrated the air dose rate distribution data obtained from aircraft monitoring, car-borne surveys, and walk surveys with respect to the region within 80 km from the FDNPS and Fukushima Prefecture. The measurement results for FY2020 were published on the "Expansion Site of Distribution Map of Radiation Dose", and measurement data were stored as CSV format. Radiation monitoring and analysis of environmental samples owing to the comprehensive radiation monitoring plan were carried out.

spectrometry of terrestrial gamma rays using portable germanium detectors in area of 80 km radius around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Mikami, Satoshi; Tanaka, Hiroyuki*; Okuda, Naotoshi*; Sakamoto, Ryuichi*; Ochi, Kotaro; Uno, Kiichiro*; Matsuda, Norihiro; Saito, Kimiaki

Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai Wabun Rombunshi, 20(4), p.159 - 178, 2021/12

https://doi.org/10.3327/taesj.J20.010

In order to know the background radiation level where the area affected by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in 2011, terrestrial gamma rays had been measured by using portable germanium detectors repeatedly from 2013 through 2019, at 370 locations within 80 km radius area centered on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Radioactive concentrations of Uranium 238, Thorium 232, Potassium 40 and kerma rates in air due to terrestrial gamma rays were obtained at those locations based on the method of ICRU report 53. Averaged concentrations of U, Th and K were 18.8, 22.7, 428 Bq/kg, respectively, and kerma rate in air over the area was found to be 0.0402 Gy/h. The obtained kerma rates in air were compared to those reported in literatures. It was confirmed that the data were correlated with each other, and were agreed within the range of their uncertainty. This is because the kerma rate in air due to terrestrial gamma rays is depend on geology. The similar trend to previous findings was observed that the kerma rate in air at locations geologically classified as Mesozoic era, Granite and Rhyolite were statistically significantly higher than the others.

Quantifying the porosity of crystalline rocks by in situ and laboratory injection methods

Mri, A.*; Mazurek, M.*; Ota, Kunio; Siitari-Kauppi, M.*; Eichinger, F.*; Leuenberger, M.*

Minerals (Internet), 11(10), p.1072_1 - 1072_17, 2021/10

https://doi.org/10.3390/min11101072

Performance of in situ gamma-ray spectrometry in the assessment of radioactive cesium deposition around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Ji, Y.-Y.*; Ochi, Kotaro; Hong, S. B.*; Nakama, Shigeo; Sanada, Yukihisa; Mikami, Satoshi

Radiation Physics and Chemistry, 179, p.109205_1 - 109205_11, 2021/02

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radphyschem.2020.109205

In situ gamma-ray spectrometry using diverse survey platforms has been conducted in contaminated areas with several dose rate levels around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP). Six survey sites, including two evacuation zones around the FDNPP, were selected for ground-based gamma-ray spectrometry using HPGe (high purity Ge) and LaBr(Ce) detectors to assess the radioactive cesium deposition in the ground. The diverse levels of radioactivity of Cs were then distributed to six survey sites from 30 to 3000 kBq m in the measurement period of October 2018. A method to directly calculate the depth profile using in situ measurement was introduced so as to have representation over a wide area, and the results were successfully compared with those of sample analysis at one point in the site.

Interactive in-situ steering using interactive in-situ visualization framework based on particle

Kawamura, Takuma

Dai-34-Kai Suchi Ryutai Rikigaku Shimpojiumu Koen Rombunshu (Internet), 3 Pages, 2020/12

The search for computational parameters in simulations is an important issue in optimizing design variables and increasing the accuracy of simulations. However, due to the recent improvement in the performance of computational units, the data I/O speed has become a bottleneck, making it difficult to store the calculation results consisting of huge parameters in storage. In this study, we focused on in-situ steering, in which computational parameters are explored simultaneously with the computation on the supercomputer. We have extended our previously developed particle-based interactive in-situ visualization framework to develop a technique for interactively steering the computational parameters of batch-processed simulations. We applied this technique to a real-time simulation under development in our mid-term plan, and showed that the user can optimize the parameter search by adjusting the computational parameters in real time with feedback from the visualization.

Improvement in interactive remote in situ visualization using SIMD-aware function parser and asynchronous data I/O

Kawamura, Takuma; Idomura, Yasuhiro

Journal of Visualization, 23(4), p.695 - 706, 2020/08

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-020-00652-z

An in-situ visualization system based on the particle-based volume rendering offers a highly scalable and flexible visual analytics environment based on multivariate volume rendering. Although it showed excellent computational performance on the conventional CPU platforms, accelerated computation on the latest many core platforms revealed performance bottlenecks related to a function parser and particles I/O. In this paper, we develop a new SIMD-aware function parser and an asynchronous data I/O method based on task-based thread parallelization. Numerical experiments on the Oakforest-PACS, which consists of 8208 Intel Xeon Phi7250 (Knights Landing) processors, demonstrate an order of magnitude speedup with keeping improved strong scaling up to 100 k cores.

Investigations on distribution of radioactive substances owing to the FDNPP accident in the fiscal year 2018 (Contract research)

Group for Fukushima Mapping Project

JAEA-Technology 2019-019, 135 Pages, 2020/03

JAEA-Technology-2019-019.pdf:22.01MB

After the accident at TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), distribution situation survey on radioactive materials have been conducted with financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (later the Nuclear Regulatory Agency) from June 2011 to FY2018. Results obtained in the project in FY2018 are presented in this report. Car-borne surveys, a flat ground measurement using survey meters, a walk survey and an unmanned helicopter survey were carried out to obtain air dose rate data. Air dose rate distribution maps were created and temporal changes of air dose rate were analyzed. Regarding radiocesium deposition in the soil, depth profile survey in the soil and in-situ measurement were performed. Based on these measurement results, effective half-life of the air dose rate and the deposition were evaluated. Considering radiation monitoring data obtained in previous surveys and the installation positions of existing monitoring posts, we tried to make the "score" of the importance of measurement points. Using the Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach, we obtained a map that integrated the air dose rate distribution data obtained from aircraft monitoring, car-borne surveys, and walk surveys for the entire region within 80 km from the FDNPS. The measurement results for FY2018 were published on the "Expansion Site of Distribution Map of Radiation Dose", and measurement data were stored as CSV format. Radiation monitoring and environmental sample analysis owing to the comprehensive radiation monitoring plan were carried out.

The In-situ experiment for performance confirmation of engineered barrier system at Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory; Installation of engineered barrier system and backfilling the test niche at the 350m gallery

Nakayama, Masashi; Ono, Hirokazu

JAEA-Research 2019-007, 132 Pages, 2019/12

JAEA-Research-2019-007.pdf:11.29MB
JAEA-Research-2019-007-appendix(CD-ROM).zip:39.18MB

The Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory (URL) Project has being pursued by Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) to enhance the reliability of relevant disposal technologies through investigations of the deep geological environment within the host sedimentary formation at Horonobe, northern Hokkaido. The URL Project consists of two major research areas, "Geoscientific Research" and "Research and Development on Geological Disposal Technologies". The in-situ experiment for performance confirmation of engineered barrier system (EBS experiment) had been prepared from 2013 to 2014 fiscal year at GL-350m gallery, and heating by electric heater in simulated overpack had started in January, 2015. One of objectives of the EBS experiment is acquiring data concerned with Thermal-Hydrological-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) coupled behavior. These data will be used in order to confirm the performance of engineered barrier system. This report shows following works had carried out at the GL-350 m gallery. Excavation of a test niche and a test pit, Setting buffer material blocks and a simulated overpack into the test pit, Backfilling the niche by compaction backfilling material and setting backfilling material blocks, Casting concrete type plug and contact grouting, Consolidate measurement system and start measuring.

The Deposition densities of radiocesium and the air dose rates in undisturbed fields around the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant; Their temporal changes for five years after the accident

Mikami, Satoshi; Tanaka, Hiroyuki*; Matsuda, Hideo*; Sato, Shoji*; Hoshide, Yoshifumi*; Okuda, Naotoshi*; Suzuki, Takeo*; Sakamoto, Ryuichi*; Ando, Masaki; Saito, Kimiaki

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, 210, p.105941_1 - 105941_12, 2019/12

AA2019-0019.pdf:2.65MB

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2019.03.017

The deposition densities of radiocesium and the air dose rates were repeatedly measured in a large number of undisturbed fields within the 80km zone that surrounds the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant site between 2011 and 2016, and features of their temporal changes were clarified. The average air dose rate excluding background radiation in this zone decreased to about 20% of the initial value during the period from June 2011 to August 2016, which was essentially a result of the radioactive decay of Cs with a half-life of 2.06y. The air dose rate reduction was faster than that expected from the decay of radiocesium by a factor of about two, with most of this reduction being attributed to the penetration of radiocesium into the soil. The average deposition densities of Cs and Cs in fields that were not decontaminated were found to have decreased nearly according to their expected radioactive decay, which indicated that the movement of radiocesium in the horizontal direction was relatively small. The effect of decontamination was apparently observed in the measurements of air dose rates and deposition densities. Nominally, the average air dose rates in the measurement locations were reduced by about 20% by decontamination and other human activities, of which accurate quantitative analysis is and continue to be a challenge.