Development of a formulation to predict molten core spreading in an LWR severe accident

Sahboun, N. F.; Matsumoto, Toshinori; Iwasawa, Yuzuru; Wang, Z.; Sugiyama, Tomoyuki

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 195, p.110145_1 - 110145_12, 2024/01

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2023.110145

Probing deformation behavior of a refractory high-entropy alloy using neutron diffraction

Zhou, Y.*; Song, W.*; Zhang, F.*; Wu, Y.*; Lei, Z.*; Jiao, M.*; Zhang, X.*; Dong, J.*; Zhang, Y.*; Yang, M.*; et al.

Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 971, p.172635_1 - 172635_7, 2024/01

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2023.172635

Transient analyses of hydraulic head in the fault slip experiments in fracture zones of Shionohira and Kuruma Faults

Wakahama, Hiroshi*; Nojo, Haruka*; Aoki, Kazuhiro; Imai, Hirotaro; Guglielmi, Y.*; Cook, P.*; Soom, F.*

Oyo Chishitsu, 64(5), p.236 - 254, 2023/12

Upon the Hamadori earthquake (Mw 6.7) of 11 April 2011, coseismic surface deformation of 14 km running NNW to SSE in southeast Fukushima Prefecture occurred and was newly named the Shionohira Fault. However, no surface deformation was observed along the Kuruma Fault which is a southern extension of the Shionohira Fault. Fault injection tests using SIMFIP method at the Shionohira site on the former active segment and the Minakamikita site on the latter inactive segment were conducted to evaluate the activity of the two faults. Based on hydraulic responses to water injection into the fault rupture zone in the monitoring boreholes at the two sites, hydraulic properties of the area across the fault zone were estimated using the GRF model (Barker, 1988). The results obtained on hydraulic conductivity, specific storage and flow dimension were consistent with those in the domestic and international literature. The hydraulic conductivity and specific storage were larger in Shionohira than in Minakamikita. The flow dimension of Shionohira was three-dimensional, while that of Minakamikita was found to be a two-dimensional fractional flow. In addition, it is understood that the volumetric expansion occurs in the former site in the triaxial direction and the latter in the uniaxial with the comparison between the uniaxial expansion coefficient calculated from the results of SIMFIP displacement measurements and the specific storage in the hydraulic analysis. The difference in the hydraulic parameters between the two sites corresponded to the difference in the spatial development of fractures considered to be the "water passway," indicating the possibility of a correlation between the parameters and the different possible causes for fault activity at the two sites.

Root endophytic bacterial and fungal communities in a natural hot desert are differentially regulated in dry and wet seasons by stochastic processes and functional traits

Taniguchi, Takeshi*; Isobe, Kazuo*; Imada, Shogo*; Eltayeb, M. M.*; Akaji, Yasuaki*; Nakayama, Masataka; Allen, M. F.*; Aronson, E. L.*

Science of the Total Environment, 899, p.165524_1 - 165524_13, 2023/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165524

Dryland ecosystems experience seasonal cycles of severe drought and moderate precipitation. Desert plants typically have patchy distributions, and many may develop symbiotic relationships with root endophytic microbes to survive under the repeated wet and extremely dry conditions. Although community coalescence has been found in many systems, the colonization by functional microbes and its relationship to seasonal transitions in arid regions are not well understood. Here we examined root endophytic microbial taxa, and their traits in relation to their root colonization, during the dry and wet seasons in a hot desert of the southwestern United States. We used high-throughput DNA sequencing of 16S rRNA and ITS gene profiling of five desert shrubs, and analyzed the seasonal change in endophytic microbial lineages. In summer, Actinobacteria increased, although this was not genus-specific. For fungi, Glomeraceae selectively increased in summer. In winter, Gram-negative bacterial genera, including those capable of nitrogen fixation and plant growth promotion, increased. Neutral model analysis revealed a strong stochastic influence on endophytic bacteria but a weak effect for fungi, especially in summer. The taxa with higher frequency than that predicted by the neutral model shared environmental adaptability and symbiotic traits, whereas the frequency of pathogenic fungi was at or under the predicted value. These results suggest that community assembly of bacteria and fungi is regulated differently. The bacterial community was affected by stochastic and deterministic processes via the bacterial response to drought (response trait) and beneficial effect on plants (effect trait). For fungi, mycorrhizal fungi were selected by plants in summer. The regulation of beneficial microbes by plants in both dry and wet seasons suggests the presence of plant-soil positive feedback in this natural desert ecosystem.

First observation of O

Kondo, Yosuke*; Achouri, N. L.*; Al Falou, H.*; Atar, L.*; Aumann, T.*; Baba, Hidetada*; Boretzky, K.*; Caesar, C.*; Calvet, D.*; Chae, H.*; et al.

Nature, 620(7976), p.965 - 970, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06352-6

no abstracts in English

Synthesis, crystal structure, local structure, and magnetic properties of polycrystalline and single-crystalline CePtAl

Ota, Kyugo*; Watabe, Yuki*; Haga, Yoshinori; Iesari, F.*; Okajima, Toshihiko*; Matsumoto, Yuji*

Symmetry (Internet), 15(8), p.1488_1 - 1488_13, 2023/07

https://doi.org/10.3390/sym15081488

Pressure-modulated magnetism and negative thermal expansion in the HoFe intermetallic compound

Cao, Y.*; Zhou, H.*; Khmelevskyi, S.*; Lin, K.*; Avdeev, M.*; Wang, C.-W.*; Wang, B.*; Hu, F.*; Kato, Kenichi*; Hattori, Takanori; et al.

Chemistry of Materials, 35(8), p.3249 - 3255, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.3c00158

Hydrostatic and chemical pressure are efficient stimuli to alter the crystal structure and are commonly used for tuning electronic and magnetic properties in materials science. However, chemical pressure is difficult to quantify and a clear correspondence between these two types of pressure is still lacking. Here, we study intermetallic candidates for a permanent magnet with a negative thermal expansion (NTE). Based on in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction, negative chemical pressure is revealed in HoFe on Al doping and quantitatively evaluated by using temperature and pressure dependence of unit cell volume. A combination of magnetization and neutron diffraction measurements also allowed one to compare the effect of chemical pressure on magnetic ordering with that of hydrostatic pressure. Intriguingly, pressure can be used to control suppression and enhancement of NTE. Electronic structure calculations indicate that pressure affected the top of the majority band with respect to the Fermi level, which has implications for the magnetic stability, which in turn plays a critical role in modulating magnetism and NTE. This work presents a good example of understanding the effect of pressure and utilizing it to control properties of functional materials.

Nested antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations and non-Fermi-liquid behavior in electron-doped CeCoNiIn

Sakai, Hironori; Tokunaga, Yo; Kambe, Shinsaku; Zhu, J.-X.*; Ronning, F.*; Thompson, J. D.*; Kotegawa, Hisashi*; To, Hideki*; Suzuki, Kohei*; Oshima, Yoshiki*; et al.

Physical Review B, 106(23), p.235152_1 - 235152_8, 2022/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.235152

We investigate the electronic state of Ni-substituted CeCoNiIn by nuclear quadrupole and magnetic resonance (NQR/NMR) techniques. The heavy fermion superconductivity below K for is suppressed by Ni substitutions, and reaches zero for . The In NQR spectra for and 0.25 can be explained by simulating the electrical field gradient that is calculated for a virtual supercell with density functional theory. The spin-lattice relaxation rate indicates that Ni substitution weakens antiferromagnetic correlations that are not localized near the substituent but instead are uniform in space. The temperature () dependence of for shows a maximum around K and decreases toward almost zero when temperature is further reduced as if a gap might be opening in the magnetic excitation spectrum; however, the magnetic specific heat and the static magnetic susceptibility evolve smoothly through with a dependence. The peculiar T dependence of and non-Fermi-liquid specific heat and susceptibility can be interpreted in a unified way by assuming nested antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations in a quasi-two-dimensional electronic system.

On the adsorption and reactivity of element 114, flerovium

Yakushev, A.*; Lens, L.*; Dllmann, Ch. E.*; Khuyagbaatar, J.*; Jger, E.*; Krier, J.*; Runke, J.*; Albers, H. M.*; Asai, Masato; Block, M.*; et al.

Frontiers in Chemistry (Internet), 10, p.976635_1 - 976635_11, 2022/08

https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2022.976635

Flerovium (Fl, element 114) is the heaviest element chemically studied so far. The first chemical experiment on Fl suggested that Fl is a noble-gas-like element, while the second studies suggested that Fl has a volatile-metal-like character. To obtain more reliable conclusion, we performed further experimental studies on Fl adsorption behavior on Si oxide and gold surfaces. The present results suggest that Fl is highly volatile and less reactive than the volatile metal, Hg, but has higher reactivity than the noble gas, Rn.

State-of-the-art of WPS in RPV PTS analysis

Zarazovski, M.*; Pistra, V.*; Lauerova, D.*; Obermeier, F.*; Mora, D.*; Dubyk, Y.*; Bolinder, T.*; Cueto-Felgueroso, C.*; Szavai, S.*; Dudra, J.*; et al.

Proceedings of ASME 2022 Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference (PVP 2022) (Internet), 11 Pages, 2022/07