Estimation of oxygen consumption amount in LBE-cooled accelerator-driven system

Sugawara, Takanori; Komatsu, Atsushi

JAEA-Research 2020-016, 44 Pages, 2021/01

JAEA-Research-2020-016.pdf:2.94MB

It is required to control the oxygen concentration in lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) to prevent the corrosion of structures in LBE-cooled nuclear system. This study estimated the oxygen consumption amount in the LBE-cooled accelerator-driven system (ADS). We used the evaluation formula for the oxide layer thickness, which were derived by various experiments, to estimate the oxygen consumption amount. It was found that the maximum oxide layer thicknesses for the fuel assembly and the beam window were about 35 [m] and 20 [m], respectively. Based on these results, the oxygen consumption amount for the ADS plant was estimated as 30 [kg] during one cycle (one year). Through this study, it was indicated that an oxygen supply device which could supply 3-4 [g/h] oxygen in the normal operation, 150 [g/h] in the peak and about 30 [kg] during one cycle was necessary.

Dynamics of enhanced neoclassical particle transport of tracer impurity ions in ion temperature gradient driven turbulence

Idomura, Yasuhiro; Obrejan, K.*; Asahi, Yuichi; Honda, Mitsuru*

Physics of Plasmas, 28(1), p.012501_1 - 012501_11, 2021/01

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0027484

Tracer impurity transport in ion temperature gradient driven (ITG) turbulence is investigated using a global full- gyrokinetic simulation including kinetic electrons, bulk ions, and low to medium tracer impurities, where is the charge number. It is found that in addition to turbulent particle transport, enhanced neoclassical particle transport due to a new synergy effect between turbulent and neoclassical transports makes a significant contribution to tracer impurity transport. Bursty excitation of the ITG mode generates non-ambipolar turbulent particle fluxes of electrons and bulk ions, leading to a fast growth of the radial electric field following the ambipolar condition. The divergence of flows compresses up-down asymmetric density perturbations, which are subject to transport induced by the magnetic drift. The enhanced neoclassical particle transport depends on the ion mass, because the magnitude of up-down asymmetric density perturbation is determined by a competition between the compression effect and the return current given by the parallel streaming motion. This mechanism does not work for the temperature, and thus, selectively enhances only particle transport.

Review of research on advanced computational science in FY2019

Center for Computational Science & e-Systems

JAEA-Evaluation 2020-002, 37 Pages, 2020/12

JAEA-Evaluation-2020-002.pdf:1.59MB

Research on advanced computational science for nuclear applications, based on "the plan to achieve the mid and long term goal of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency", has been performed at Center for Computational Science & e-Systems (CCSE), Japan Atomic Energy Agency. CCSE established a committee consisting of outside experts and authorities which does research evaluation and advice for the assistance of the future research and development. This report summarizes the results of the R&D performed at CCSE in FY2019 (April 1st, 2019 - March 31st, 2020) and the evaluation by the committee on them.

Neutronics design for molten salt accelerator-driven system as TRU burner

Sugawara, Takanori

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 149, p.107818_1 - 107818_7, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2020.107818

Treatment of surplus plutonium has been one of the most important issues in the utilization of nuclear power in Japan. This study investigates a molten salt accelerator-driven system (ADS) to transmute transuranic (TRU) nuclides to address the issue. MARDS (Molten salt Accelerator Driven System) concept employs lead chloride (PbCl) as a fuel salt to achieve a hard spectrum. Since the fuel salt is used as a spallation target, a dedicated spallation target is not required in this concept. Furthermore, a beam window which is a boundary between an accelerator and subcritical core is designed to avoid touching the fuel salt. It mitigates the difficulties of the beam design for ADS. Neutronics calculation for the MARDS concept was performed for a condition of 400 MW thermal power with 800 MeV proton beam. The calculation results showed that the proton beam current was about 7 mA and about 4400 kg plutonium could be transmuted during 40-year operation.

Global budget of atmospheric I during 2007-2010 estimated by a chemical transport model: GEARN-FDM

Kadowaki, Masanao; Terada, Hiroaki; Nagai, Haruyasu

Atmospheric Environment; X (Internet), 8, p.100098_1 - 100098_17, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeaoa.2020.100098

The behaviors of atmospheric I and the global cycle of I remain incompletely understood because the spatiotemporal resolution of monitoring is insufficient and few measurement-based models have been reported. This study aims to quantitatively understand the global budget of I. When quantifying, we conduct global atmospheric I dispersion simulations covering from 2007 to 2010. To achieve this goal, the present study newly incorporated the iodine chemistry processes of two gas-phase chemical reactions, six photolysis reactions, and two heterogeneous reactions into an existing atmospheric I transport model (GEARN-FDM). Besides the aerial release of I from nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities, the model includes the volatilization processes of I compounds from Earth's surface. The net I exchange fluxes from the atmosphere to the Earth's surface of land and ocean were estimated as 18.0 GBq/y and 5.3 GBq/y, respectively. The global I emission from oceans was estimated as 7.2 GBq/y, nearly half of the emission totals were emitted from the English Channel (3.2 GBq/y). In addition, the global I emission from land was estimated as 1.7 GBq/y. The remarkable I emission from land was mainly appeared in Europe, Russia, and North America, and the emission distribution is impacted by the activities of the past and ongoing nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities. The total I emission from ocean and land is lower than the I emission from the model-included nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities (23.3 GBq/y), showing that the aerial release of nuclear fuel reprocessing facilities in operation is still an important I source.

Acceleration of fusion plasma turbulence simulation on Fugaku and Summit

Idomura, Yasuhiro; Ina, Takuya*; Ali, Y.*; Imamura, Toshiyuki*

Dai-34-Kai Suchi Ryutai Rikigaku Shimpojiumu Koen Rombunshu (Internet), 6 Pages, 2020/12

A new communication avoiding (CA) Krylov solver with a FP16 (half precision) preconditioner is developed for a semi-implicit finite difference solver in the Gyrokinetic Toroidal 5D full-f Eulerian code GT5D. In the solver, the bottleneck of global collective communication is resolved using a CA-Krylov subspace method, and halo data communication is reduced by the FP16 preconditioner, which improves the convergence property. The FP16 preconditioner is designed based on the physics properties of the operator and is implemented using the new support for FP16 SIMD operations on A64FX. The solver is ported also on GPUs, and the performance of ITER size simulations with trillion grids is measured on Fugaku (A64FX) and Summit (V100). The new solver accelerates GT5D by from the conventional non-CA solver, and excellent strong scaling is obtained up to 5,760 CPUs/GPUs both on Fugaku and Summit.

Two-step-pressurization method in pulsed electric current sintering of MoO for production of Tc radioactive isotope

Suematsu, Hisayuki*; Sato, Soma*; Nakayama, Tadachika*; Suzuki, Tatsuya*; Niihara, Koichi*; Nanko, Makoto*; Tsuchiya, Kunihiko

Journal of Asian Ceramic Societies (Internet), 8(4), p.1154 - 1161, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1080/21870764.2020.1824326

Pulsed electric current sintering of molybdenum trioxide (MoO) was carried out by one- and two-step pressuring methods for fabrication of irradiation target using production of Mo and Tc nuclear medicine. At 550C by the two-step pressurizing method, a relative density of 93.1% was obtained while, by the one-step pressurization method, the relative density was 76.9%. Direct sample temperature measurements were conducted by inserting a thermocouple in a punch. By the two-step pressurizing method, the sample temperature was higher than that by the one-step pressurizing method even almost the same die temperature. From voltage and current waveforms, it was thought that the conductivity of the sample increased by the two-step pressurizing method to increase the sample temperature and the relative density. The two-step pressurization method enables us to prepare dense targets at a low temperature from recycled and coarse-grained Mo enriched MoO powder.

Pb(p,x)Bi and Bi(p,x)Bi excitation functions in the energy range of 0.04 - 2.6 GeV

Titarenko, Yu. E.*; Batyaev, V. F.*; Pavlov, K. V.*; Titarenko, A. Yu.*; Malinovskiy, S. V.*; Rogov, V. I.*; Zhivun, V. M.*; Kulevoy, T. V.*; Chauzova, M. V.*; Lushin, S. V.*; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 984, p.164635_1 - 164635_8, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2020.164635

The paper presents the Bi production cross-sections measured by the direct gamma-spectrometry technique in the samples of lead enriched with isotopes 208, 207 and 206, as well as in the samples of natural lead and bismuth, irradiated by protons of 11 energies in the range from 0.04 to 2.6 GeV. The obtained experimental results are compared with the previous measurements, with the TENDL-2019 data-library evaluations and the simulated data by means of the high-energy transport codes MCNP6.1 (CEM03.03), PHITS (INCL4.6/GEM), and Geant4 (INCL++/ABLA). The observed discrepancies between model predictions and experimental data are discussed.

Comprehensive understanding of hillocks and ion tracks in ceramics irradiated with swift heavy ions

Ishikawa, Norito; Taguchi, Tomitsugu*; Ogawa, Hiroaki

Quantum Beam Science (Internet), 4(4), p.43_1 - 43_14, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.3390/qubs4040043

Amorphizable ceramics were irradiated with 200 MeV Au ions, and the as-irradiated samples were observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The ion track diameter and hillock diameter are similar for all the amorphizable ceramics. For SrTiO and niobium-doped STO, 200 MeV Au ion irradiation and TEM observation were also performed. The ion track diameters in these materials are found to be markedly smaller than the hillock diameters. The ion tracks in these materials exhibit inhomogeneity, which is similar to that reported for non-amorphizable ceramics. On the other hand, the hillocks appear to be amorphous, and the amorphous feature is in contrast to the crystalline feature of hillocks observed in non-amorphizable ceramics. No marked difference is recognized between the nanostructures in STO and those in Nb-STO.

Application of an augmentation method to MCR-ALS analysis for XAFS and raman data matrices in the structural change of isopolymolybdates

Saeki, Morihisa*; Yomogida, Takumi; Matsumura, Daiju; Saito, Takumi*; Nakanishi, Ryuzo*; Tsuji, Takuya; Oba, Hironori*

Analytical Sciences, 36(11), p.1371 - 1378, 2020/11

https://doi.org/10.2116/analsci.20P147

We measured X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) and Raman spectra of isopolymolybdates(VI) in HNO solution (0.15- 4.0 M), which change their geometries depending on acid concentration, and performed simultaneous resolution of the XAFS and Raman data using a multivariate curve resolution by alternating least-squares (MCR-ALS) analysis. In iterative ALS optimization, initial data matrices were prepared by two different methods. The MCR-ALS result of single XAFS data matrix shows large dependence on the preparation method of the initial data matrices. The MCR-ALS result of an augmented matrix of Raman and XAFS data has little dependence on the initial data matrices. It indicates that the augmentation method effectively improves the rotation ambiguities in the MCR-ALS analysis of the XAFS data. Based on the model fitting of the pure EXAFS oscillations, we revealed the change of [MoO(HO)] [MoO(HO)] [HMoO(HO)] in the highly concentrated HNO solution.