Development of a non-destructive depth-selective quantification method for sub-percent carbon contents in steel using negative muon lifetime analysis

Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Kubo, Kenya*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Yoshida, Go*; Chiu, I.-H. ; Kudo, Takuto*; Asari, Shunsuke*; Sentoku, Sawako*; Takeshita, Soshi*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; et al.

Scientific Reports (Internet), 14, p.1797_1 - 1797_8, 2024/01

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-52255-5

The amount of C in steel, which is critical in determining its properties, is strongly influenced by steel production technology. We propose a novel method of quantifying the bulk C content in steel non-destructively using muons. This revolutionary method may be used not only in the quality control of steel in production, but also in analyzing precious steel archaeological artifacts. A negatively charged muon forms an atomic system owing to its negative charge, and is finally absorbed into the nucleus or decays to an electron. The lifetimes of muons differ significantly, depending on whether they are trapped by Fe or C atoms, and identifying the elemental content at the muon stoppage position is possible via muon lifetime measurements. The relationship between the muon capture probabilities of C/Fe and the elemental content of C exhibits a good linearity, and the C content in the steel may be quantitatively determined via muon lifetime measurements. Furthermore, by controlling the incident energies of the muons, they may be stopped in each layer of a stacked sample consisting of three types of steel plates with thicknesses of 0.5 mm, and we successfully determined the C contents in the range 0.20 - 1.03 wt% depth-selectively, without sample destruction.

PSTEP: Project for solar-terrestrial environment prediction

Kusano, Kanya*; Ichimoto, Kiyoshi*; Ishii, Mamoru*; Miyoshi, Yoshizumi*; Yoden, Shigeo*; Akiyoshi, Hideharu*; Asai, Ayumi*; Ebihara, Yusuke*; Fujiwara, Hitoshi*; Goto, Tadanori*; et al.

Earth, Planets and Space (Internet), 73(1), p.159_1 - 159_29, 2021/12

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-021-01486-1

The PSTEP is a nationwide research collaboration in Japan and was conducted from April 2015 to March 2020, supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. It has made a significant progress in space weather research and operational forecasts, publishing over 500 refereed journal papers and organizing four international symposiums, various workshops and seminars, and summer school for graduate students at Rikubetsu in 2017. This paper is a summary report of the PSTEP and describes the major research achievements it produced.

Measurement of displacement cross section for proton in the kinetic energy range from 0.4 GeV to 3 GeV

Meigo, Shinichiro; Matsuda, Hiroki; Iwamoto, Yosuke; Yoshida, Makoto*; Hasegawa, Shoichi; Maekawa, Fujio; Iwamoto, Hiroki; Nakamoto, Tatsushi*; Ishida, Taku*; Makimura, Shunsuke*

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 33, p.011050_1 - 011050_6, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.33.011050

R&D of the beam window is crucial in the ADS, which serves as a partition between the accelerator and the target region. Although the displacement per atom (DPA) is used to evaluate the damage on the window, experimental data on the displacement cross section is scarce in the energy region above 20 MeV. We started to measure the displacement cross section for the protons in the energy region between 0.4 to 3 GeV. The displacement cross section can be derived by resistivity change divided by the proton flux and the resistivity change per Frankel pair on cryo-cooled sample to maintain damage. Experiments were conducted at the 3 GeV proton synchrotron at the J-PARC Center, and aluminum and copper was used as samples. As a result of comparison between the present experiment and the calculation of the NRT model, which is widely used for calculation of the displacement cross section, it was found that the calculation of the NRT model overestimated the experiment by about 3 times.

Thermally altered subsurface material of asteroid (162173) Ryugu

Kitazato, Kohei*; Milliken, R. E.*; Iwata, Takahiro*; Abe, Masanao*; Otake, Makiko*; Matsuura, Shuji*; Takagi, Yasuhiko*; Nakamura, Tomoki*; Hiroi, Takahiro*; Matsuoka, Moe*; et al.

Nature Astronomy (Internet), 5(3), p.246 - 250, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-01271-2

Here we report observations of Ryugu's subsurface material by the Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRS3) on the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Reflectance spectra of excavated material exhibit a hydroxyl (OH) absorption feature that is slightly stronger and peak-shifted compared with that observed for the surface, indicating that space weathering and/or radiative heating have caused subtle spectral changes in the uppermost surface. However, the strength and shape of the OH feature still suggests that the subsurface material experienced heating above 300 C, similar to the surface. In contrast, thermophysical modeling indicates that radiative heating does not increase the temperature above 200 C at the estimated excavation depth of 1 m, even if the semimajor axis is reduced to 0.344 au. This supports the hypothesis that primary thermal alteration occurred due to radiogenic and/or impact heating on Ryugu's parent body.

Measurement of displacement cross-sections of copper and iron for proton with kinetic energies in the range 0.4 - 3 GeV

Matsuda, Hiroki; Meigo, Shinichiro; Iwamoto, Yosuke; Yoshida, Makoto*; Hasegawa, Shoichi; Maekawa, Fujio; Iwamoto, Hiroki; Nakamoto, Tatsushi*; Ishida, Taku*; Makimura, Shunsuke*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 57(10), p.1141 - 1151, 2020/10

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2020.1771453

To estimate the structural damages of materials in accelerator facilities, displacement per atom (dpa) is widely employed as a damage index, calculated based on the displacement cross-section obtained using a calculation model. Although dpa is applied as standard, the experimental data of the displacement cross-section for a proton in the energy region above 20 MeV are scarce. Among the calculation models, difference of about factor 8 exist, so that the experimental data of the cross-section are crucial to validate the model. To obtain the displacement cross-section, we conducted experiments at J-PARC. The displacement cross-section of copper and iron was successfully obtained for a proton projectile with the kinetic energies, 0.4 - 3 GeV. The results were compared with those obtained using the widely utilized Norgertt-Robinson-Torrens (NRT) model and the athermal-recombination-corrected (arc) model based on molecular dynamics. It was found that the NRT model overestimates the present displacement cross-section by 3.5 times. The calculation results obtained using with the arc model based on the Nordlund parameter show remarkable agreement with the experimental data. It can be concluded that the arc model must be employed for the dpa calculation for the damage estimation of copper and iron.

Measurement of defect-induced electrical resistivity change of tungsten wire at cryogenic temperature using high-energy proton irradiation

Iwamoto, Yosuke; Yoshida, Makoto*; Matsuda, Hiroki; Meigo, Shinichiro; Satoh, Daiki; Yashima, Hiroshi*; Yabuuchi, Atsushi*; Kinomura, Atsushi*; Shima, Tatsushi*

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 28, p.061003_1 - 061003_5, 2020/02

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.28.061003

To predict the lifetime of target materials in high-energy radiation environments at spallation neutron sources, radiation transport codes such as PHITS are used to calculate the displacements per atom (DPA) value. In this work, to validate calculated DPA values of tungsten, we implemented 0.25-mm-diameter wire sample of tungsten in a proton irradiation device with a Gifford-McMahon cryocooler and measured the defect-induced electrical resistivity changes related to the displacement cross section using 389-MeV protons at 10 K. In comparison with experimental data under 1.1 and 1.9 GeV proton irradiation, we found that damage rate of tungsten increases with proton energy due to increase the number of secondary particle s produced by nuclear reactions.

Initial quantum levels of captured muons in CO, CO, and COS

Yoshida, Go*; Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Higemoto, Wataru; Strasser, P.*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Miura, Taichi*; Kubo, Kenya*; et al.

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 320, p.283 - 289, 2019/05

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06470-4

The role of valence electrons for the muon capture process by molecules is experimentally investigated with the aid of cascade calculations. Low-momentum muons are introduced to gas targets below atmospheric pressure. The initial states of captured muons are determined from the measured muonic X-ray structure of the Lyman and Balmer series. We propose that the lone pair electrons in the carbon atom of CO significantly contribute to the capture of a muon with large angular momenta.

Radiation damage calculation in PHITS and benchmarking experiment for cryogenic-sample high-energy proton irradiation

Iwamoto, Yosuke; Matsuda, Hiroki; Meigo, Shinichiro; Satoh, Daiki; Nakamoto, Tatsushi*; Yoshida, Makoto*; Ishi, Yoshihiro*; Kuriyama, Yasutoshi*; Uesugi, Tomonori*; Yashima, Hiroshi*; et al.

Proceedings of 61st ICFA Advanced Beam Dynamics Workshop on High-Intensity and High-Brightness Hadron Beams (HB 2018) (Internet), p.116 - 121, 2018/07

https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-HB2018-TUP2WE03

The radiation damage model in the radiation transport code PHITS has been developed to calculate the basic data of the radiation damage including the energy of the target Primary Knock on Atom (PKA). For the high-energy proton incident reactions, a target PKA created by the secondary particles was more dominant than a target PKA created by the projectile. To validate the radiation damage model in metals irradiated by 100 MeV protons, we developed a proton irradiation device with a Gifford-McMahon cryocooler to cryogenically cool wire samples. By using this device, the defect-induced electrical resistivity changes related to the DPA cross section of copper and aluminum were measured under irradiation with 125 and 200 MeV protons at cryogenic temperature. A comparison of the experimental data with the calculated results indicates that the DPA cross section with defect production efficiencies provide better quantitative descriptions.

Studies on the reconstruction of the concept of rock mass around the tunnel; Japanese fiscal year, 2014 (Contract research)

Kojima, Keiji*; Onishi, Yuzo*; Aoki, Kenji*; Tochiyama, Osamu*; Nishigaki, Makoto*; Tosaka, Hiroyuki*; Yoshida, Hidekazu*; Murakami, Hiroaki; Sasao, Eiji

JAEA-Research 2015-017, 54 Pages, 2015/12

JAEA-Research-2015-017.pdf:17.3MB

This report is concerned with research to reconstruct more realistic near-field (NF) concept for the geological disposal of radioactive waste. This year is the final year of this committee activities. So we have carried out the summary on Re-thinking of NF concept and its technical basis. Cooperation between the study fields and combination of various science and technology and evaluation methods are one of the important technical bases of NF concept. In addition, since the "Great East Japan Earthquake 2011", the safety paradigm has shifted dramatically. In the reconstruction of realistic NF concept, it is necessary to analyze what security matters whether society has become unacceptable for geological disposal. Committee, we also exchange views on such matters and presented the direction of future research and development for geological disposal.

The Development of a non-destructive analysis system with negative muon beam for industrial devices at J-PARC MUSE

Tampo, Motonobu*; Hamada, Koji*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Ito, Takashi; Kojima, Kenji*; Kubo, Kenya*; Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Strasser, P.*; Yoshida, Go*; et al.

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 8, p.036016_1 - 036016_6, 2015/09

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.8.036016