Analysis of the radioactivity concentrations in radioactive waste generated from JRR-3, JRR-4 and JRTF facilities, 2

Tobita, Minoru*; Goto, Katsunori*; Omori, Takeshi*; Osone, Osamu*; Haraga, Tomoko; Aono, Ryuji; Konda, Miki; Tsuchida, Daiki; Mitsukai, Akina; Ishimori, Kenichiro

JAEA-Data/Code 2023-011, 32 Pages, 2023/11

JAEA-Data-Code-2023-011.pdf:0.93MB

Radioactive wastes generated from nuclear research facilities in Japan Atomic Energy Agency are planning to be buried in the near surface disposal field as trench and pit. Therefore, it is required to establish the method to evaluate the radioactivity concentrations of radioactive wastes until the beginning of disposal. In order to contribute to the study of radioactivity concentration evaluation methods for radioactive wastes generated from nuclear research facilities, we collected and analyzed concrete samples generated from JRR-3, JRR-4 and JAERI Reprocessing Test Facility. In this report, we summarized the radioactivity concentrations of 23 radionuclides (H, C, Cl, Ca, Co, Ni, Sr, Nb, Ag, Cs, Ba, Eu, Eu, Ho, U, U, U, Pu, Pu, Pu, Am, Am, Cm) which were obtained from radiochemical analysis of the samples in fiscal years 2021-2022.

A Study on convection in molten zone of aluminum alloy during Fe/Al resistance spot welding

Iyota, Muneyoshi*; Matsuda, Tomoki*; Sano, Tomokazu*; Shigeta, Masaya*; Shobu, Takahisa; Yumoto, Hirokatsu*; Koyama, Takahisa*; Yamazaki, Hiroshi*; Semba, Yasunori*; Ohashi, Haruhiko*; et al.

Journal of Manufacturing Processes, 94, p.424 - 434, 2023/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2023.03.032

Development of "MOX weighing and Ball-mill blending" based on experience in operation and maintenance of MOX fuel manufacturing equipment

Kawasaki, Kohei; Ono, Takanori; Shibanuma, Kimikazu; Goto, Kenta; Aita, Takahiro; Okamoto, Naritoshi; Shinada, Kenta; Ichige, Hidekazu; Takase, Tatsuya; Osaka, Yuki; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2022-031, 91 Pages, 2023/02

JAEA-Technology-2022-031.pdf:6.57MB

The document for back-end policy opened to the public in 2018 by Japan Atomic Energy Agency (hereafter, JAEA) states the decommissioning of facilities of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engineering Laboratories and JAEA have started gathering up nuclear fuel material of the facilities into Plutonium Fuel Production Facilities (hereafter, PFPF) in order to put it long-term, stable and safe storage. Because we planned to manufacture scrap assemblies almost same with Monju fuel assembly using unsealed plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide (hereafter, MOX) powder held in PFPF and transfer them to storage facilities as part of this "concentration" task of nuclear fuel material, we obtained permission to change the use of nuclear fuel material in response to the new regulatory Requirements in Japan for that. The amount of plutonium (which is neither sintered pellets nor in a lidded powder-transport container) that could be handled in the pellet-manufacturing process was limited to 50 kg Pu or less in order to decrease the facility risk in this manufacture. Therefore, we developed and installed the "MOX weighing and blending equipment" corresponding with small batch sizes that functioned in a starting process and the equipment would decrease handling amounts of plutonium on its downstream processes. The failure data based on our operation and maintenance experiences of MOX fuel production facilities was reflected in the design of the equipment to further improve reliability and maintainability in this development. The completed equipment started its operation using MOX powder in February 2022 and the design has been validated through this half-a-year operation. This report organizes the knowledge obtained through the development of the equipment, the evaluation of the design based on the half-a-year operation results and the issues in future equipment development.

Reactor noise power-spectral analysis for a graphite-moderated and -reflected core, 3

Sakon, Atsushi*; Hashimoto, Kengo*; Sano, Tadafumi*; Nakajima, Kunihiro*; Kanda, Shun*; Goto, Masaki*; Fukaya, Yuji; Okita, Shoichiro; Fujimoto, Nozomu*; Takahashi, Yoshiyuki*

KURNS Progress Report 2021, P. 100, 2022/07

https://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/PUB/report/PR/ProgRep2021/ProgRep2021.html

The R&D of reactor noise analysis to obtain HTGR nuclear characteristics have been performed with Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA). In the last study, a neutron detector located about 55 cm away of fuel assembly measured the auto power spectral density. However, the prompt neutron decay constants obtained by this detector was different from that of other detectors. The objective of this study is experimental study of reactor noise analysis by the power spectrum method using neutron detector placed outside reactor core.

Study on chemical form of tritium in coolant helium of high temperature gas-cooled reactor with tritium production device

Hamamoto, Shimpei; Ishitsuka, Etsuo; Nakagawa, Shigeaki; Goto, Minoru; Matsuura, Hideaki*; Katayama, Kazunari*; Otsuka, Teppei*; Tobita, Kenji*

Proceedings of 2021 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2021) (USB Flash Drive), 5 Pages, 2021/10

Impurity concentrations of hydrogen and hydride in the coolant were investigated in detail for the HTTR, a block type high-temperature gas reactor owned by Japan. As a result, it was found that CH was 1/10 of H concentration, which was under the conventional detection limit. If the ratio of H to CH in the coolant is the same as the ratio of HT to CHT, the CHT has a larger dose conversion factor, and this compositional ratio is an important finding for the optimal dose evaluation. Further investigation of the origin of CH suggested that CH was produced as a result of a thermal equilibrium reaction rather than being released as an impurity from the core.

Improving the safety of the power supply system by separating the power supply circuit for control in the power distribution board in Tokai Reprocessing Plant

Goto, Sho; Aoki, Kenji; Morimoto, Kenji; Tsuboi, Masatoshi; Isozaki, Naohiko; Furukawa, Ryuichi; Kitagawa, Osamu; Fukaya, Yasuhiro*

Nihon Hozen Gakkai Dai-17-Kai Gakujutsu Koenkai Yoshishu, p.517 - 520, 2021/07

no abstracts in English

Giant multiple caloric effects in charge transition ferrimagnet

Kosugi, Yoshihisa*; Goto, Matato*; Tan, Z.*; Kan, Daisuke*; Isobe, Masahiko*; Yoshii, Kenji; Mizumaki, Masaichiro*; Fujita, Asaya*; Takagi, Hidenori*; Shimakawa, Yuichi*

Scientific Reports (Internet), 11(1), p.12682_1 - 12682_8, 2021/06

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91888-8

Caloric effects of solids provide more efficient and environment-friendly innovative refrigeration systems compared to the widely-used conventional vapor compressive cooling systems. Exploring novel caloric materials is challenging but critically important in developing future technologies. Here we discovered that the quadruple perovskite structure ferrimagnet BiCuCrO shows a large multicaloric effect at the first-order charge transition occurred around 190 K. Large latent heat and the corresponding isothermal entropy changes 28.2 J K kg can be fully utilized by applying both magnetic fields (magnetocaloric effect) and pressure (barocaloric effect). Adiabatic temperature changes reach 3.9 K for the 50 kOe magnetic field and 4.8 K for the 4.9 kbar pressure, and thus highly efficient thermal controls are achieved by multiple ways.

Reactor physics experiment in a graphite-moderation system for HTGR

Fukaya, Yuji; Goto, Minoru; Nakagawa, Shigeaki; Nakajima, Kunihiro*; Takahashi, Kazuki*; Sakon, Atsushi*; Sano, Tadafumi*; Hashimoto, Kengo*

Proceedings of International Conference on the Physics of Reactors; Transition To A Scalable Nuclear Future (PHYSOR 2020) (USB Flash Drive), 8 Pages, 2020/03

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) started the Research and Development (R&D) to improve nuclear prediction techniques for High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs). The objectives are to introduce a generalized bias factor method to avoid full mock-up experiment for the first commercial HTGR and to introduce reactor noise analysis to High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) experiment to observe subcriticality. To achieve the objectives, the reactor core of graphite-moderation system named B7/4"G2/8"p8EUNU+3/8"p38EU(1) was newly composed in the B-rack of Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA). The core is composed of the fuel assembly, driver fuel assembly, graphite reflector, and polyethylene reflector. The fuel assembly is composed of enriched uranium plate, natural uranium plate and graphite plates to realize the average fuel enrichment of HTTR and it's spectrum. However, driver fuel assembly is necessary to achieve the criticality with the small-sized core. The core plays a role of the reference core of the bias factor method, and the reactor noise was measured to develop the noise analysis scheme. In this study, the overview of the criticality experiments is reported. The reactor configuration with graphite moderation system is rare case in the KUCA experiments, and this experiment is expected to contribute not only for an HTGR development but also for other types of a reactor in the graphite moderation system such as a molten salt reactor development.

Characterization of germanium detectors for the measurement of the angular distribution of prompt -rays at the ANNRI in the MLF of the J-PARC

Takada, Shusuke*; Okudaira, Takuya*; Goto, Fumiya*; Hirota, Katsuya*; Kimura, Atsushi; Kitaguchi, Masaaki*; Koga, Jun*; Nakao, Taro*; Sakai, Kenji; Shimizu, Hirohiko*; et al.

Journal of Instrumentation (Internet), 13(2), p.P02018_1 - P02018_21, 2018/02

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/13/02/P02018

Role of multichance fission in the description of fission-fragment mass distributions at high energies

Hirose, Kentaro; Nishio, Katsuhisa; Tanaka, Shoya*; Lguillon, R.*; Makii, Hiroyuki; Nishinaka, Ichiro*; Orlandi, R.; Tsukada, Kazuaki; Smallcombe, J.*; Vermeulen, M. J.; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 119(22), p.222501_1 - 222501_6, 2017/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.222501

Fission-fragment mass distributions were measured for U, Np and Pu populated in the excitation-energy range from 10 to 60 MeV by multi-nucleon transfer channels in the reaction O + U at the JAEA tandem facility. Among them, the data for U and Np were observed for the first time. It was found that the mass distributions for all the studied nuclides maintain a double-humped shape up to the highest measured energy in contrast to expectations of predominantly symmetric fission due to the washing out of nuclear shell effects. From a comparison with the dynamical calculation based on the fluctuation-dissipation model, this behavior of the mass distributions was unambiguously attributed to the effect of multi-chance fission.