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

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.

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).

Role of advection in atmospheric ammonia; A Case study at a Japanese lake basin influenced by agricultural ammonia sources

Kubota, Tomohiro; Kuroda, Hisao*; Watanabe, Mirai*; Takahashi, Akiko*; Nakazato, Ryoji*; Tarui, Mika*; Matsumoto, Shunichi*; Nakagawa, Keita*; Numata, Yasuko*; Ouchi, Takao*; et al.

Atmospheric Environment, 243, p.117856_1 - 117856_9, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2020.117856

The dry and wet depositions of atmospheric ammonia (NH) is one of the important pathways of nitrogen loads to aquatic ecosystems. Crop and livestock agriculture, one of the largest emitters of NH in Asian countries, are known to cause high spatial and seasonal variation of NH and influence the surrounding lake basin areas via its dry and wet deposition. However, the spatial characteristics of the NH concentration in basin scale are not completely understood for regulation in NH emission. Here we aim to clarify dominant factors of spatial and seasonal variations of the NH concentration in a eutrophic lake basin surrounded by agricultural areas in Japan. Passive sampling over various land use categories in the basin was conducted at 36 sites in total from October 2018 to January 2020. Interestingly, the observed NH concentration near the livestock houses were higher in winter than summer, which was inconsistent with knowledge of seasonal changes of current NH emission inventory based on temperature-driven volatilization process. Comparing monthly NH concentrations with various meteorological factors, we suggested the importance of seasonal advection of NH from high emission sources to which has been rarely paid attention by the previous past studies. As for this, should be considered for lake ecosystem management since deposition of NH is known to be closely related to the ecological processes such as phytoplankton blooming.

Dynamic properties of human -synuclein related to propensity to amyloid fibril formation

Fujiwara, Satoru*; Kono, Fumiaki*; Matsuo, Tatsuhito*; Sugimoto, Yasunobu*; Matsumoto, Tomoharu*; Narita, Tetsuhiro*; Shibata, Kaoru

Journal of Molecular Biology, 431(17), p.3229 - 3245, 2019/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2019.05.047

-synuclein (Syn) is an intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) with unknown function. Syn is known to form amyloid fibrils, which are implicated with the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease and other synucleinopathies. Elucidating the mechanism of fibril formation of Syn is therefore important for understanding the mechanism of the pathogenesis of these diseases. Here, using the quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) techniques, we investigated the dynamic and structural properties of Syn. These results imply that fibril formation of Syn requires not only the enhanced local motions but also the segmental motions such that the proper inter-molecular interactions are possible.

Shielding experiments of concrete and iron for the 244 MeV and 387 MeV quasi-mono energetic neutrons using a Bonner sphere spectrometer (at RCNP, Osaka Univ.)

Matsumoto, Tetsuro*; Masuda, Akihiko*; Nishiyama, Jun*; Iwase, Hiroshi*; Iwamoto, Yosuke; Satoh, Daiki; Hagiwara, Masayuki*; Yashima, Hiroshi*; Yashima, Hiroshi*; Shima, Tatsushi*; et al.

EPJ Web of Conferences, 153, p.08016_1 - 08016_3, 2017/09

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201715308016

Neutron energy spectra behind concrete and iron shields were measured for quasi-monoenergetic neutrons above 200 MeV using a Bonner sphere spectrometer (BSS). Quasi-monoenergetic neutrons were produced by the Li(p,xn) reaction with 246-MeV and 389-MeV protons. The response function of BSS was also measured at neutron energies from 100 MeV to 387 MeV. In data analysis, the measured response function was used and the multiple neutron scattering effect between the BSS and the shielding material was considered. The neutron energy spectra behind the concrete and iron shields were obtained by the unfolding method using the MAXED code. Ambient dose equivalents were obtained as a function of a shield thickness successfully. For the case of the 244 MeV neutron incidence, the multiple neutron scattering effect on the effective dose is large under 50 cm thickness of the concrete shield.

Applicability of the two-angle differential method to response measurement of neutron-sensitive devices at the RCNP high-energy neutron facility

Masuda, Akihiko*; Matsumoto, Tetsuro*; Iwamoto, Yosuke; Hagiwara, Masayuki*; Satoh, Daiki; Sato, Tatsuhiko; Iwase, Hiroshi*; Yashima, Hiroshi*; Nakane, Yoshihiro; Nishiyama, Jun*; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 849, p.94 - 101, 2017/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2016.12.031

Quasi-monoenergetic high-energy neutron fields induced by Li(p,n) reactions are used for the response evaluation of neutron-sensitive devices. The quasi-monoenergetic high-energy field consists of high-energy monoenergetic peak neutrons and unwanted continuum neutrons down to the low-energy region. A two-angle differential method has been developed to compensate for the effect of the continuum neutrons in the response measurements. In this study, the two-angle differential method was demonstrated for Bonner sphere detectors, which are typical examples of moderator-based neutron-sensitive detectors, to investigate the method's applicability and its dependence on detector characteristics. Through this study, the adequacy of the two-angle differential method was experimentally verified, and practical suggestions were made pertaining to this method.

Probing strongly correlated 4-orbital symmetry of the ground state in Yb compounds by linear dichroism in core-level photoemission

Mori, Takeo*; Kitayama, Satoshi*; Kanai, Yuina*; Naimen, Sho*; Fujiwara, Hidenori*; Higashiya, Atsushi*; Tamasaku, Kenji*; Tanaka, Arata*; Terashima, Kensei*; Imada, Shin*; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 83(12), p.123702_1 - 123702_5, 2014/12

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.83.123702

We show that the strongly correlated 4-orbital symmetry of the ground state is revealed by linear dichroism in core-level photoemission spectra, as we have discovered for YbRhSi and YbCuSi. Theoretical analysis shows us that the linear dichroism reflects the anisotropic charge distributions resulting from a crystalline electric field. We have successfully determined the ground-state 4 symmetry for both compounds from the polarization-dependent angle resolved core-level spectra at a temperature well below the first excitation energy. The excited-state symmetry is also probed by temperature dependence of the linear dichroism where the high measurement temperatures are on the order of the crystal-field-splitting energies.

Characterization of quasi-monoenergetic neutron source using 137, 200, 246 and 389 MeV Li(p,n) reactions

Iwamoto, Yosuke; Hagiwara, Masayuki*; Iwase, Hiroshi*; Yashima, Hiroshi*; Satoh, Daiki; Matsumoto, Tetsuro*; Masuda, Akihiko*; Pioch, C.*; Mares, V.*; Shima, Tatsushi*; et al.

Progress in Nuclear Science and Technology (Internet), 4, p.657 - 660, 2014/04

https://doi.org/10.15669/pnst.4.657

The authors measured the neutron energy spectra of the proton incident reaction on the lithium target with 137, 200, 246 and 389 MeV protons at several angles (0, 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30), using a time-of-flight (TOF) method employing organic scintillators NE213 at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) of Osaka University. For the neutron energy spectrum at 0, the ratio of the peak neutron intensity to the total one varied between 0.4 and 0.5 depending on the incident energy. In order to consider the correction required to derive the response in the peak region from the measured total response for high-energy neutron detectors, the authors showed the subtractions of H*(10) obtained at larger angles from the 0 data in the continuum part. It was found that subtracting the dose equivalent at about 22 from the 0 data reduces the continuum component most efficiency.

Shielding benchmark experiment using hundreds of MeV quasi-monoenergetic neutron source by a large organic scintillator

Hagiwara, Masayuki*; Iwase, Hiroshi*; Iwamoto, Yosuke; Satoh, Daiki; Matsumoto, Tetsuro*; Masuda, Akihiko*; Yashima, Hiroshi*; Nakane, Yoshihiro; Nakashima, Hiroshi; Sakamoto, Yukio; et al.

Progress in Nuclear Science and Technology (Internet), 4, p.327 - 331, 2014/04

https://doi.org/10.15669/pnst.4.327

We have developed several hundreds of MeV p-Li quasi-monoenergetic neutron fields in the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP), Osaka University, Japan. In this study, we extended the measurements to higher energy with a p-Li quasi-monoenergetic neutron source, which was produced from a 1.0-cm-thick lithium target bombarded with 246 and 389 MeV protons, using a larger NE213 scintillator of 25.4-cm in diameter and 25.4-cm in thickness. The large NE213 have good energy resolution for high energy neutrons, because it can stop recoil protons up to 180 MeV. The measured data are compared with the Monte-Carlo codes (PHITS with JENDL-HE data library) in the energy spectra, time spectra and the attenuation length of the peak neutrons. This comparison shows good agreement between experiments and calculations. The attenuation length estimated from the well-fitted curves with single exponential form will be useful for the practical shielding design of high energy accelerator facilities.