Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Initialising ...
Amekura, Hiroshi*; Chettah, A.*; Narumi, Kazumasa*; Chiba, Atsuya*; Hirano, Yoshimi*; Yamada, Keisuke*; Yamamoto, Shunya*; Leino, A. A.*; Djurabekova, F.*; Nordlund, K.*; et al.
Nature Communications (Internet), 15, p.1786_1 - 1786_10, 2024/02
Injecting high-energy heavy ions in the electronic stopping regime into solids can create cylindrical damage zones called latent ion tracks. Although these tracks form in many materials, none have ever been observed in diamond, even when irradiated with high-energy GeV uranium ions. Here we report the first observation of ion track formation in diamond irradiated with 2-9 MeV C
fullerene ions. Depending on the ion energy, the mean track length (diameter) changed from 17 (3.2) nm to 52 (7.1) nm. High resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (HR-STEM) indicated the amorphization in the tracks, in which 
-bonding signal from graphite was detected by the electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS).
Kitamura, Akihiro; Hirano, Hiroshi*; Yoshida, Masato
Nuclear Engineering and Design, 411, p.112435_1 - 112435_14, 2023/09
Times Cited Count：0 Percentile：0.01(Nuclear Science & Technology)This study presents the features and brief history of the glovebox dismantling facility and the primary dismantlement results. Subsequently, we evaluate the novelties of the facility from operational experiences in manual and remote glovebox dismantlement methods and discuss their characteristics. Furthermore, we evaluate the worker exposure dose based on the obtained data. Finally, we show how these experiences are effectively fed back to the technological dismantlement development for our decommissioning project.
Kitamura, Akihiro; Hirano, Hiroshi*; Yoshida, Masato; Takeuchi, Kentaro
Hoken Butsuri (Internet), 58(2), p.76 - 90, 2023/08
The alpha contaminated gloveboxes have been dismantled for over 20 years in Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility. The so called wet recovery equipment gloveboxes, which recover plutonium and uranium from scrap fuel by dissolving and extracting processes, were chosen as the priority gloveboxes to be dismantled. These gloveboxes and other gloveboxes in the same room were size reduced and removed up until 2022. Also, non-radioactive ancillary facility and non-radioactive giant glovebox were removed from 2007 to 2010 for ease of glovebox dismantling activities that follows and for making waste storage spaces. Several incidents were occurred and recidivism prevention measures were implemented on each occasion. In this report, glovebox dismantling activities we conducted in the past 20 years are reviewed and lessons we have learned are summarized.
Shibanuma, Tomohiro; Hirano, Hiroshi*; Kimura, Yasuhisa; Aita, Takahiro; Yoshida, Masato; Nagai, Yuya; Kitamura, Akihiro
Hoken Butsuri (Internet), 58(2), p.91 - 98, 2023/08
We developed new containment tents that are more easily assembled and effectively functioned, by improving and refurbishing the shortcomings of the conventional tents. The new tents have been already tested in the real airborne contamination situation occurred at the plutonium fuel fabricating facility. The tents appropriately functioned for intended use but other shortcomings emerged and therefore we had modified the structure of the tents further.
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
Asakawa, Jun; Hirano, Hiroshi*; Nagai, Yuya; Aita, Takahiro; Shibanuma, Tomohiro; Kimura, Yasuhisa
Hoken Butsuri (Internet), 57(2), p.93 - 101, 2022/09
In the dismantling work of glove boxes (GBs) contaminated with radioactive materials at the nuclear fuel facilities, plastic tents are constructed around the entire GBs, and workers putting on air-fed suits (AFS) (hereinafter referred to as AFS worker) dismantle the GBs and interior equipment by using cutting tools. If an AFS worker suddenly feels sick during the work and the worker is unable to move independently, it will be necessary to exit in the shortest time from the viewpoint of respecting human life. In this case, a lot of radioactive materials may be brought into the contamination control room, thus the room and the equipment of the workers may be contaminated. Consequently, until the decontamination work is completed, the other AFS workers will have to put on AFS and wait for long time, which puts a strain on the workers. In this report, the plastic enclosure tents for body decontamination developed in JAEA were used as a new contamination control room replaced the contaminated one, and the procedure to quickly exit the remaining AFS workers was proposed. As a result, we confirmed that it was possible to greatly reduce the waiting time of the other AFS workers who is forced to wait in the dismantling area.
Kikuchi, Haruka; Hirano, Hiroshi*; Kitamura, Akihiro
Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai Wabun Rombunshi, 21(1), p.50 - 63, 2022/03
The air fed suit is a kind of personal protective equipment that provides purified air through a hose and that protects a worker from radiation hazards. In the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engineering Laboratories of the JAEA, the suit is used for size reduction and dismantlement of radioactively contaminated, in particular with plutonium, gloveboxes and equipment. Although the suit has been widely adopted in the similar activities, there still exist potential hazards due to the limiting features of the suit itself and its supplemental system. In fact, we had faced with several unexpected problems regarding such restricted aspects during the dismantling activities. To address these failure potentials, we have implemented various countermeasures and improvements to enhance the workers safety. We describe the disadvantages of the air fed suit system and positive feedbacks we have implemented.
Amekura, Hiroshi*; Toulemonde, M.*; Narumi, Kazumasa*; Li, R.*; Chiba, Atsuya*; Hirano, Yoshimi*; Yamada, Keisuke*; Yamamoto, Shunya*; Ishikawa, Norito; Okubo, Nariaki; et al.
Scientific Reports (Internet), 11(1), p.185_1 - 185_11, 2021/01
Times Cited Count：12 Percentile：75.03(Multidisciplinary Sciences)We report the track formation of 10 nm in diameter in silicon irradiated with 6 MeV C, i.e., much lower energy than the previously reported energy threshold.
and 200 MeV Xe ion irradiationLi, R.*; Narumi, Kazumasa*; Chiba, Atsuya*; Hirano, Yu*; Tsuya, Daiju*; Yamamoto, Shunya*; Saito, Yuichi*; Okubo, Nariaki; Ishikawa, Norito; Pang, C.*; et al.
Nanotechnology, 31(26), p.265606_1 - 265606_9, 2020/06
Times Cited Count：5 Percentile：33.01(Nanoscience & Nanotechnology)We report the elongation of embedded Au nanoparticles (NPs) in three different matrices under irradiations of 4 MeV C ions and 200 MeV Xe ions. Large elongation of Au NPs was observed for crystalline indium tin oxide (ITO) under both 4 MeV C and 200 MeV Xe irradiation. The ITO layer preserved the crystallinity even after large elongation was induced. This is the first report of the elongation of metal NPs in a crystalline matrix.
Kimura, Yasuhisa; Hirano, Hiroshi; Watahiki, Masatoshi; Kuba, Meiji; Ishikawa, Shinichiro
Dekomisshoningu Giho, (52), p.45 - 54, 2015/09
The Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility (PFFF) of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency is now in its decommissioning phase. In the PFFF, terminated gloveboxes have been dismantled. Gloveboxes to be dismantled are surrounded by a plastic enclosure to prevent contamination from being spread into process room. Dismantling operations for gloveboxes are performed manually by workers, each wearing an air-feed suit. However, the mental and physical loads placed on workers wearing the air-feed suits are intensively high. Therefore, R&Ds on new dismantling technologies including utilization of heavy machines covered with plastic enclosure for anti-contamination have been started to reduce the potential risks associated with workers and decommissioning costs. In this paper, the status of decommissioning of the PFFF and the overview of developed dismantling technologies for 
-tight gloveboxes are described.
Sekio, Yoshihiro; Yoshimochi, Hiroshi; Kosaka, Ichiro; Hirano, Hiroyasu; Koyama, Tomozo; Kawamura, Hiroshi
Proceedings of 52nd Annual Meeting of Hot Laboratories and Remote Handling Working Group (HOTLAB 2015) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2015/09
Due to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011, the safe and secure implementations of the decommissioning for Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been positioned as the urgent tasks in Japan. Japan Atomic Energy Agency has a critical mission of analysing radioactive wastes having generated by the accident for long-term storage and disposal methods. This will be performed in two hot laboratories to be constructed in Okuma Analysis and Research Center at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant site. In one laboratory, radioactive wastes such as rubbles and secondary wastes will be treated, whereas debris such as fuel debris and high dose structural materials will be handled in the other laboratory. The detail considerations for advanced techniques and experimental apparatus to be installed are underway.
Kondo, Yasuhiro; Morishita, Takatoshi; Yamazaki, Saishun; Hori, Toshihiko; Sawabe, Yuki; Chishiro, Etsuji; Fukuda, Shimpei; Hasegawa, Kazuo; Hirano, Koichiro; Kikuzawa, Nobuhiro; et al.
Physical Review Special Topics; Accelerators and Beams, 17(12), p.120101_1 - 120101_8, 2014/12
Times Cited Count：6 Percentile：42.9(Physics, Nuclear)We performed a beam test of a new radio frequency quadrupole linac (RFQ III) for the beam current upgrade of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex. First, the conditioning of RFQ III was conducted, and after 20 h of conditioning, RFQ III became very stable with a nominal peak power and duty factor of 400 kW and 1.5%, respectively. An off-line beam test was subsequently conducted before installation in the accelerator tunnel. The transmission, transverse emittance, and energy spread of the 50-mA negative hydrogen beam from RFQ III were measured and compared with simulation results. The experiment and simulation results showed good agreement; therefore, we conclude that the performance of RFQ III conforms to its design.
Oguri, Hidetomo; Hasegawa, Kazuo; Ito, Takashi; Chishiro, Etsuji; Hirano, Koichiro; Morishita, Takatoshi; Shinozaki, Shinichi; Ao, Hiroyuki; Okoshi, Kiyonori; Kondo, Yasuhiro; et al.
Proceedings of 11th Annual Meeting of Particle Accelerator Society of Japan (Internet), p.389 - 393, 2014/10
no abstracts in English
Kuba, Meiji; Watahiki, Masatoshi; Hirano, Hiroshi; Ishikawa, Shinichiro; Sato, Hisato
Proceedings of International Waste Management Symposia 2014 (WM2014) (Internet), 12 Pages, 2014/05
Plutonium Fuel Fabrication Facility is now in a decommissioning phase. In the facility, stabilizing activities of nuclear material residuals remained and the gloveboxes dismantling activities have been carried out simultaneously. Glovebox dismantling activities are performed manually by a worker wearing air-feed suit with mechanical tools in a plastic enclosure which is constructed around the glove boxes for preventing spread of contamination. However, the mental load and physical load of the worker are intensively high. Therefore, worker's safely issue still exists and need to be resolved. Moreover, occupational time for the worker is restricted to only one hour per day, which in turn make shortening schedule and cost savings almost impossible. R&D of new dismantling methods including application of heavy equipment with anti-contamination measure to strengthen the work performance in the plastic enclosures has been started to reduce the above mentioned potential risks and costs.
Soma, Nobukazu*; Oikawa, Yasuki*; Hirano, Toru*; Matsui, Hiroya; Asanuma, Hiroshi*
Butsuri Tansa, 66(2), p.69 - 83, 2013/04
We have studied a reflection imaging technique in which passive seismic signals from other construction activity such as drilling noise are used as a wave source in order to develop a low-cost measurement method inside underground gallery. In this paper, we show an application to data sets from Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory of Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The drilling was conducted with a main purpose of extraction rock core samples for rock mechanics research. The three-dimensional reflection imaging results and comparison with well observation are shown in this paper.
Kondo, Yasuhiro; Morishita, Takatoshi; Hasegawa, Kazuo; Chishiro, Etsuji; Hirano, Koichiro; Hori, Toshihiko; Oguri, Hidetomo; Sato, Fumiaki; Shinozaki, Shinichi; Sugimura, Takashi*; et al.
Physical Review Special Topics; Accelerators and Beams, 16(4), p.040102_1 - 040102_8, 2013/04
Times Cited Count：15 Percentile：68.29(Physics, Nuclear)We performed a high-power test of a new radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ II) for the J-PARC linac. RFQ II was developed as a spare RFQ because the operating J-PARC RFQ has suffered from a sparking problem. First, the conditioning of RFQ II was carried out; after 50 h of conditioning, RFQ II became very stable with a nominal power and duty of 330 kW and 3%, respectively. Next the thermal properties were measured because the resonant frequency of RFQ II is tuned by changing the temperature of the cooling water. The frequency response was measured and compared to finite-element method simulation results, confirming that the simple two-dimensional model reproduces the experimental data well. The differences in the field distribution with changes in the rf loading and the cooling-water temperature were also measured, and no serious field distortion was observed. Therefore, we conclude that RFQ II can perform well as a high-power rf cavity.
Watahiki, Masatoshi; Akai, Masanori; Nakai, Koji; Iemura, Keisuke; Yoshino, Masanori*; Hirano, Hiroshi*; Kitamura, Akihiro; Suzuki, Kazunori
Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai Wabun Rombunshi, 11(1), p.101 - 109, 2012/02
Gloveboxes used for plutonium fuel development and fabrication are eventually dismantled for replacement or decommissioning. Since equipment interior and the inner surface of gloveboxes are contaminated in radioactive materials, glovebox dismantling work is performed by workers wearing an air fed suit with mechanical tools in a plastic enclosure system to control the spread of contamination. Various improvements of enclosure system are implemented including modification of the rooms to decontaminate and undress the air fed suit and introduction of inflammable filter and safety film near the size reduction workspace against fire. We describe the countermeasures deployed in the enclosure system against potential hazards and how these devices work in the real dismantling activities.
Yanagi, Hiroshi*; Watanabe, Takumi*; Kodama, Katsuaki; Iikubo, Satoshi*; Shamoto, Shinichi; Kamiya, Toshio*; Hirano, Masahiro*; Hosono, Hideo*
Journal of Applied Physics, 105(9), p.093916_1 - 093916_8, 2009/05
Times Cited Count：47 Percentile：83.35(Physics, Applied)Electronic and magnetic properties of a layered compound LaMnPO are examined in relation to a newly discovered iso-structural superconductor LaFeAs(P)O. Neutron diffraction measurements, together with temperature dependent magnetic susceptibility, clarify that LaMnPO is an antiferromagnet at least up to 375 K. The spin moment of a Mn ion is determined to be 2.26 
at room temperature, and the spin configuration is antiparallel in the Mn-P plane and parallel to between the Mn-P planes, which is rather different from that of LaFeAsO. Optical absorption spectra, photoemission spectra, and temperature dependent electrical conductivity indicate that LaMnPO is a semiconductor. Furthermore, nominally undoped LaMnPO exhibits 
-type conduction while the conduction type is changed by doping of Cu or Ca to the La sites, indicating that LaMnPO is a bipolar conductor. Density functional calculation using the GGA+U approximation supports the above conclusions; the electronic band structure has an open band gap and the antiferromagnetic spin configuration is more stable than the ferromagnetic one.
Koshizuka, Seiichi*; Liu, J.*; Morita, Koji*; Arima, Tatsumi*; Zhang, S.*; Tobita, Yoshiharu; Yamano, Hidemasa; Ito, Takahiro*; Naito, Masanori*; Shirakawa, Noriyuki*; et al.
Proceedings of 2009 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP '09) (CD-ROM), 1 Pages, 2009/05
A computer code, named COMPASS, is developed for multi-physics analysis of core disruptive accidents of sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). A meshless method, called MPS method, is employed since complex thermal-hydraulics and structural problems with various phase change processes have to be analyzed. Verification for separeted basic processes and validation for practical phenomena are carried out. COMPASS is also expected to investigate molten fuel discharge to avoid re-criticality in large size SFR cores. Both MOX and metal fuels are considered. Eutectic reactions between the metal fuel and the cladding material are investigated by phase diagram calculation, classical and first-principles molecular dynamics. Basic studies relevant to the numerical methods support the code development of COMPASS. Parallel processing is implemented by OpenMP to treat large-scale problems. A visualization tool is also prepared by using AVS.
Koshizuka, Seiichi*; Liu, J.*; Morita, Koji*; Arima, Tatsumi*; Zhang, S.*; Tobita, Yoshiharu; Yamano, Hidemasa; Ito, Takahiro*; Naito, Masanori*; Shirakawa, Noriyuki*; et al.
Proceedings of IAEA Topical Meeting on Advanced Safety Assessment Methods for Nuclear Reactors (CD-ROM), 9 Pages, 2007/10
A computer code, named COMPASS (Computer Code with Moving Particle Semi-implicit for Reactor Safety Analysis), is being developed for various complex phenomena of core disruptive accidents (CDAs) in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Theoretical studies are performed about a unified algorithm for compressible and incompressible flows, fluid flow with solid debris, and algorithm improvement for free surface flows. Code verification and validation procedures are established by exploiting the past experiences in those of SIMMER-III code. COMPASS will be used for separated phenomena in CDAs, while the whole core will be analyzed by SIMMER-III. COMPASS is expected to clarify the detailed process in duct wall failure and fuel discharge to avoid re-criticality during CDAs in large size SFRs.
