Decommissioning state of Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility; Dismantling the glove box W-9 and equipment interior, and a part of tunnel F1

Nagai, Yuya; Shuji, Yoshiyuki; Kawasaki, Takeshi; Aita, Takahiro; Kimura, Yasuhisa; Nemoto, Yasunori*; Onuma, Takeshi*; Tomiyama, Noboru*; Hirano, Koji*; Usui, Yasuhiro*; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2022-039, 117 Pages, 2023/06

JAEA-Technology-2022-039.pdf:11.96MB

Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) manages wide range of nuclear facilities. Many of these facilities are required to be performed adjustment with the aging and complement with the new regulatory standards and the earthquake resistant, since the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident. It is therefore desirable to promote decommissioning of facilities that have reached the end of their productive life in order to reduce risk and maintenance costs. However, the progress of facility decommissioning require large amount of money and radioactive waste storage space. In order to address these issues, JAEA has formulated a "The Medium/Long-Term Management Plan of JAEA Facilities" with three pillars: (1) consolidation and prioritization of facilities, (2) assurance of facility safety, and (3) back-end countermeasures. In this plan, Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility has been selected as primary decommissioned facility, and dismantling of equipment in the facilities have been underway. In this report, size reduction activities of the glove box W-9 and a part of tunnel F-1, which was connected to W-9, are presented, and the obtained findings are highlighted. The glovebox W-9 had oxidation & reduction furnace, and pellet crushing machine as equipment interior. The duration of activity took six years from February 2014 to February 2020, including suspended period of 4 years due to the enhanced authorization approval process

The First application of a GdAlGaO:Ce single-crystal scintillator to neutron radiography

Isegawa, Kazuhisa; Setoyama, Daigo*; Kimura, Hidehiko*; Shinohara, Takenao

Journal of Imaging (Internet), 7(11), p.232_1 - 232_9, 2021/11

https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging7110232

Neutron radiography is regarded as complementary to X-ray radiography in terms of transmittance through materials, but its spatial resolution is still insufficient. In order to achieve higher resolution in neutron imaging, several approaches have been adopted such as optical magnification and event centroiding, and the authors focused on modification of the scintillator in this paper. A GdAlGaO:Ce single-crystal scintillator was applied to neutron radiography for the first time and was achieved a spatial resolution of 10.5 micrometers. The results indicate that this material can be a powerful candidate for a new neutron scintillator providing a resolution in micrometer order by optimizing the optical system and increasing the scintillator luminosity.

Feasibility study of PGAA for boride identification in simulated melted core materials

Tsuchikawa, Yusuke; Abe, Yuta; Oishi, Yuji*; Kai, Tetsuya; Toh, Yosuke; Segawa, Mariko; Maeda, Makoto; Kimura, Atsushi; Nakamura, Shoji; Harada, Masahide; et al.

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 33, p.011074_1 - 011074_6, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.33.011074

In the decommissioning of the Fukushima-Daiichi (1F) Nuclear Power Plant, it is essential to understand characteristics of the melted core materials. The estimation of boride in the real debris is of great importance to develop safe debris removal plans. Hence, it is required to investigate the amount of boron in the melted core materials with nondestructive methods. Prompt gamma-ray activation analysis (PGAA) is one of the useful techniques to determine the amount of borides by means of the 478 keV prompt gamma-ray from neutron absorption reaction of boron. Moreover, it is well known that the width of the 478 keV gamma-ray peak is typically broadened due to the Doppler effect. The degree of the broadening is affected by coexisting materials, and can be recognized by the width of the prompt gamma-ray peak. As a feasibility study, the prompt gamma-ray from boride samples were measured using the ANNRI, NOBORU, and RADEN beamlines at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) of Japan Proton Accelerator Complex (J-PARC).

Development of MIG2DF Version 2

Takai, Shizuka; Kimura, Hideo*; Uchikoshi, Emiko*; Munakata, Masahiro; Takeda, Seiji

JAEA-Data/Code 2020-007, 174 Pages, 2020/09

JAEA-Data-Code-2020-007.pdf:4.23MB

The MIG2DF computer code is a computer program that simulates groundwater flow and radionuclide transport in porous media for the safety assessment of radioactive waste disposal. The original version of MIG2DF was released in 1992. The original code employs a two-dimensional (vertical or horizontal cross-section, or an axisymmetric configuration) finite-element method to approximate the governing equations for density-dependent saturated-unsaturated groundwater flow and radionuclide transport. Meanwhile, for geological disposal of radioactive wastes, landscape evolution such as uplift and erosion needs to be assessed as a long-term geological and climate events, considering site conditions. In coastal areas, the impact to groundwater flow by change of salinity distribution to sea level change also needs to be considered. To deal with these events in the assessment, we have revised the original version of MIG2DF and developed the external program which enables MIG2DF to consider unsteady landscape evolution. In these developments, this report describes an upgrade of MIG2DF (Version 2) and presents the configuration, equations, methods, and verification. This reports also give the explanation external programs of MIG2DF: PASS-TRAC (the particle tracking code), PASS-PRE (the code for dataset preparation), and PASS-POST (the post-processing visualization system).

Dose estimation for contaminated soil storage in living environment

Takai, Shizuka; Shimada, Asako; Sawaguchi, Takuma; Takeda, Seiji; Kimura, Hideo

Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 188(1), p.1 - 7, 2020/01

https://doi.org/10.1093/rpd/ncz250

After the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident, most of radiocesium-contaminated soil generated from decontamination activities outside Fukushima prefecture has been stored at decontamination sites such as schools, parks and residential lands (storage at sites) according to the Decontamination Guidelines. However, additional exposure due to the present storage has not been evaluated. Moreover, entering storage sites, which is not restricted for storage at sites, was not considered in safety assessment conducted in the guidelines. To continue the storage and confirm the effectiveness, understanding of present possible exposures is important. In this study, we evaluated exposure doses for residents and users of storage sites based on the present situation. As a result, annual doses due to residence were 10 to 10 mSv y and doses due to annual entries were of the order of 10 mSv y. Hence, we confirmed that the exposure due to present storage outside Fukushima is significantly less than 1 mSv y.

Integrating radiation protection criteria for radioactive waste management into remediation procedures in existing exposure situations after a nuclear accident

Sugiyama, Daisuke*; Kimura, Hideo; Tachikawa, Hirokazu*; Iimoto, Takeshi*; Kawata, Yosuke*; Ogino, Haruyuki*; Okoshi, Minoru*

Journal of Radiological Protection, 38(1), p.456 - 462, 2018/03

https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6498/aaa155

Experience after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station has shown that there is a need to establish radiation protection criteria for radioactive waste management consistent with the criteria adopted for the remediation of existing exposure situations. A stepwise approach to setting such criteria is proposed. Initially, a reference level for annual effective dose from waste management activities in the range 1-10 mSv should be set, with the reference level being less than the reference level for ambient dose. Subsequently, the reference level for annual effective dose from waste management activities should be reduced in one or more steps to achieve a final target value of 1 mSv. The dose criteria at each stage should be determined with relevant stakeholder involvement. Illustrative case studies show how this stepwise approach might be applied in practice.

Improvement of a metabolic model for iodine and consideration of a equivalent dose to the thyroid reduction factor for application to the OSCAAR code

Kimura, Masanori; Hato, Shinji*; Matsubara, Takeshi*; Kanno, Mitsuhiro*; Munakata, Masahiro

Proceedings of Asian Symposium on Risk Assessment and Management 2017 (ASRAM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 9 Pages, 2017/11

The authors developed a new metabolic model for iodine by combining the respiratory tract model (Publ.66), the gastrointestinal tract model (Publ.30) of the ICRP and the metabolic model for iodine (Johnson's model) in order to evaluate the behavior of radioiodine and stable iodine in the body more realistically. The developed metabolic model indicated that a reduction factor (RF) depends on dosage of stable iodine, timing of the administration of stable iodine, different iodine isotopes (I - I), and age groups. Therefore, the RF was calculated by changing these parameters and then a database of the RF was constructed for the application to the OSCAAR code.

Analysis on the effect of forest decontamination on reducing the air dose rate using the three-dimensional transport code MCNP

Hemmi, Ko; Yamaguchi, Tetsuji; Takeda, Seiji; Kimura, Hideo

Genshiryoku Bakkuendo Kenkyu (CD-ROM), 24(1), p.3 - 14, 2017/06

https://doi.org/10.3327/jnuce.24.1_3

Conditions of contaminated sources and ranges of forest decontamination that significantly reduce the air dose rate in residential areas were investigated by means of a sensitivity analysis related to the decontamination of the forest contaminated by radiocesium deriving from the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The contaminated sources including Cs and Cs were assumed to be a layer of sedimented organic matter (the A layer) and surface soils (the A layer). The air dose rates were calculated using the three-dimensional Monte Carlo transport code MCNP. A slope number of the forest, angles, state of contaminant distribution, radiocesium content in the forest soils, decontamination ranges, distance from the forest boundary to an evaluation point, and height at the evaluation point were adopted as the parameters. The decontamination of a litter (A) layer within the distance of 20 m from the forest boundary was revealed to be effective in reducing the air dose rate when the source distribution was homogeneous. The air dose rates were significantly reduced by the decontamination of the A layer within a distance of 40 m from the forest boundary on condition that the radiocesium content of the A layer was larger than that of the A layer and the source distribution was non-homogeneous, such as the forest areas beyond 20 m from the forest boundary, which were more heavily contaminated than those within 20 m.

First online multireflection time-of-flight mass measurements of isobar chains produced by fusion-evaporation reactions; Toward identification of superheavy elements via mass spectroscopy

Schury, P.*; Wada, Michiharu*; Ito, Yuta*; Kaji, Daiya*; Arai, Fumiya*; MacCormick, M.*; Murray, I.*; Haba, Hiromitsu*; Jeong, S.*; Kimura, Sota*; et al.

Physical Review C, 95(1), p.011305_1 - 011305_6, 2017/01

AA2016-0638.pdf:0.71MB

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.95.011305

Using a multireflection time-of-flight mass spectrograph located after a gas cell coupled with the gas-filled recoil ion separator GARIS-II, the masses of several -decaying heavy nuclei were directly and precisely measured. The nuclei were produced via fusion-evaporation reactions and separated from projectilelike and targetlike particles using GARIS-II before being stopped in a helium-filled gas cell. Time-of-flight spectra for three isobar chains, Fr-Rn-At-Po, Fr- Rn-At-Po-Bi, and Fr-Rn-At, were observed. Precision atomic mass values were determined for Fr, Rn, and At. Identifications of Bi, Po, Rn, and At were made with N10 detected ions, representing the next step toward use of mass spectrometry to identify exceedingly low-yield species such as superheavy element ions.

Direct measurement of nanoscale lithium diffusion in solid battery materials using radioactive tracer of Li

Ishiyama, Hironobu*; Jeong, S.-C.*; Watanabe, Yutaka*; Hirayama, Yoshikazu*; Imai, Nobuaki*; Jung, H. S.*; Miyatake, Hiroari*; Oyaizu, Mitsuhiro*; Osa, Akihiko; Otokawa, Yoshinori; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 376, p.379 - 381, 2016/06

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2015.12.036