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Okazaki, Hiro; Sumi, Mika; Sato, Mitsuhiro; Kayano, Masashi; Kageyama, Tomio; Martinez, P.*; Xu, N.*; Thomas, M.*; Porterfield, D.*; Colletti, L.*; et al.
Kaku Busshitsu Kanri Gakkai (INMM) Nihon Shibu Dai-35-Kai Nenji Taikai Rombunshu (Internet), 9 Pages, 2015/01
The quality control section of Plutonium Fuel Development Center (PFDC) in Japan Atomic Energy Agency has been analyzing isotopic compositions and content of plutonium and uranium as well as impurity and physics of nuclear materials in the process of MOX fuel fabrication for accountancy purpose as well as process control purposes. These analytical techniques are also effective for nuclear forensics to identify the source, history, and route of the material by determining a composition and chemical property of it. Therefore, PFDC cooperates with Los Alamos National Laboratory which has broad experience and established measurement skill for nuclear forensics, and evaluates the each method, procedure, and analytical data toward R&D of characterizing a nuclear fuel for forensics purposes. This paper describes the approaches to develop characterization techniques of nuclear fuel for nuclear forensic purpose at PFDC.
Okazaki, Hiro; Sumi, Mika; Abe, Katsuo; Sato, Mitsuhiro; Kageyama, Tomio
Kaku Busshitsu Kanri Gakkai (INMM) Nihon Shibu Dai-34-Kai Nenji Taikai Rombunshu (Internet), 9 Pages, 2013/10
The quality control section of Plutonium Fuel Development Center (PFDC) has been analyzing isotopic compositions by Mass Spectrometry as well as content by Isotope Dilution Mass Spectrometry (IDMS) of plutonium and uranium in nuclear materials. Along with establishing and managing the quality assurance system, ensuring the reliability of the analysis data is important. PFDC has been establishing the quality management system with ISO 9001. We addressed technical improvement to improve further reliability of analysis quality, and accredited for ISO/IEC 17025 in March 2010. While ISO 9001 consists of management requirements for quality system of organizations, ISO/IEC 17025 consists of technical requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories in addition to the management requirements. In this presentation, we report our approaches to have accreditation and operation status for isotopic compositions and content of plutonium and uranium in nuclear materials.
2000/12)Kobayashi, Hideo; ; ; ; ; *; *
JNC TN8440 2001-005, 33 Pages, 2001/02
JNC-TN8440-2001-005.pdf:1.24MB
Four mass spectrometers are used for plutonium and uranium isotopic composition analysis in the Plutonium Fuel Center. Analytical errors of the analysis was evaluated based on routine control data obtained with measurement of reference materials. It was confirmed that the errors satisfied the International Target Values for safeguard analysis, and the random error of the analysis was improved by changing conventional method to total evaporation method.
Abe, Katsuo; Sumi, Mika; Sato, Mitsuhiro; Ishikawa, Fumitaka; Kageyama, Tomio; Nakazawa, Hiroaki
no journal, ,
no abstracts in English
Ishikawa, Fumitaka; Hosogane, Tatsuya; Sato, Mitsuhiro; Nakazawa, Hiroaki
no journal, ,
Pu spot diameter and Pu concentration in the MOX fuel pellet has been determined by alpha autoradiograph method with nitratecellulose film (Pu spot: where segregated Pu locates). This paper reports the results of comparative test by measuring MOX pellet with nitratecellulose film and CR-39, a plastic detector by Nagase-Landaue, to apply CR-39 for Pu spot determination.
Sumi, Mika; Kikuchi, Takahiro; Abe, Katsuo; Sato, Mitsuhiro; Kageyama, Tomio; Yamaguchi, Kazuya*; Fujiwara, Hideki*; Sugaya, Shinichi*
no journal, ,
Accurate and precise measurements of nuclear materials are critically important for the nuclear nonproliferation and having capabilities to obtain reliable measurement is the premise of safeguards inspection by IAEA and the state at Nuclear Fuel handling facilities. Pu handling laboratories in Japan applies Mass Spectrometry (MS) for isotopic measurement and Isotope Dilution Mass Spectrometry (IDMS) for content measurement for the accountancy purposes, however, Pu standard materials essential for isotope dilution are only available from foreign suppliers. When JNFL starts its operation, required amount of Pu standard materials will increase while transportation of Pu materials are becoming more difficult and has potential risk of shortage. Thus, JAEA has been developing the technique to prepare Pu standard materials by themselves for the reliable and continuous accountancy analysis.
Kodaira, Satoshi*; Yasuda, Nakahiro*; Hosogane, Tatsuya; Ishikawa, Fumitaka; Kageyama, Tomio; Sato, Mitsuhiro
no journal, ,
The plutonium-thermal use is expected as one of the approach for reuse of spent uranium fuel in nuclear power generation. On the other hand, many kinds of nuclides including Pu with extremely long half-lives are generated in the used fuels, which would be problems for storage and control of radioactive waste. The MOX (Mixed Oxide) consisting of plutonium dioxide enriched with 4-9% Pu and uranium oxide from spent uranium fuel would allow to reduce half-lives of radioactive waste significantly through the nuclear fission. The quality of MOX pellet depends on the homogeneous dispersion of Pu. The region of highly concentrated Pu is sometimes observed as "Pu spot" in the pellet, which has the potential of anomalous combustion localized at that region. The detection of Pu spot and evaluation of its size and concentration are one of the important quality assurance of MOX pellet for the safety use in the nuclear power plant. We have applied CR-39 plastic nuclear track detectors for the measurement of Pu spot inside MOX pellet. CR-39 can image a cross-section of MOX pellet by recording 
-particle tracks from Pu in the pellet, like autoradiography. The Pu spot is visibly imaged as a "black spot" due to the dense tracks compared to homogeneously dispersed region. Conventionally, the Pu spot measurement has been carried out with manual scanning, which takes much longer times and huge amount of human work. We have developed the automatic detection and measurement system of Pu spot recorded on CR-39 by the image processing with filtering and clustering algorithms. The detection efficiency with CR-39 is achieved to be almost 100% compared with conventional manual scanning result. It provides more information about the number, size and position of Pu spot.
Suzuki, Hiromichi; Sato, Mitsuhiro; Taguchi, Yusuke; Kageyama, Tomio; Ninagawa, Junichi; Shiromo, Hideo
no journal, ,
Ensuring robust nuclear security measures are required for the facilities located Plutonium Fuel Development Center as one of licensees of nuclear facilities that have multiple category I facilities. In order to continuously ensure and strengthen nuclear security measures in those facilities, an active cultivation of nuclear security culture implemented by both entire organization and individual persons is vitally essential. Therefore, Plutonium Fuel Development Center has conducted various activities such as case-study education and training, yearly posters and patrolling the site by upper-level management that all employees hold a deep-rooted belief that there is a credible insider and outsider threat, and that nuclear security is important. These activities are conducted in order to establish the foundation of beliefs and attitudes of effective nuclear security culture. This report introduces our activities fostering nuclear security culture in Plutonium Fuel Development Center that the evaluation and the continuous improvement of bidirectional activities by both top-down from multiple management levels and bottom-up from individual employee.