Carbon dioxide balance in early-successional forests after forest fires in interior Alaska

Ueyama, Masahito*; Iwata, Hiroki*; Nagano, Hirohiko; Tahara, Narumi*; Iwama, Chie*; Harazono, Yoshinobu*

Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 275, p.196 - 207, 2019/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2019.05.020

Fire is the major disturbance in North American boreal forests, and is thought to be the most important process that determines the carbon balance in North American boreal forests. This study conducted four years of tower flux measurements in a burned ecosystem from one to four years after a fire, and nine years of measurements in a young regeneration from five to 13 years after a fire in interior Alaska. The fire scar acted as a source of 248 g C m yr one year after the fire, and the annual CO emissions continuously decreased until seven years after the fire. At the final year of the study period, 13 years after the fire, the older forest became a CO sink. During the 13 years after the fires, the total post-fire emissions were 767 g C m across both sites. Gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (RE) recovered to those of mature black spruce forests 10 years after the fire. The successional recovery of GPP was mostly explained by the recovery of the leaf area index (LAI). Anomalous weather, such as a cold spring, hot summer, and high summer rainfall, increased the CO emissions rather than the uptake. In interior Alaska, the post-fire CO emissions (35-48 Tg C) were estimated to be approximately one third to fourth of the direct CO emissions (156 Tg C) by combustions from 1998 to 2017, which indicates that post-fire emissions are important to the regional CO balance. The forest successional trajectory at young age still contains large uncertainties due to lack of data, and thus adding new data improves our understanding of the post-fire CO balance.

First-principles calculation of mechanical properties of simulated debris ZrUO

Itakura, Mitsuhiro; Nakamura, Hiroki; Kitagaki, Toru; Hoshino, Takanori; Machida, Masahiko

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 56(9-10), p.915 - 921, 2019/09

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2019.1604271

To elucidate the mechanical properties of fuel debris inside the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, we use first-principles calculations to evaluate mechanical properties of cubic ZrUO, which is a main component of the fuel debris. We focus on the dependence of mechanical properties on the fraction x of zirconium, compare our results with recent experiment of simulated debris, in which dependences of elastic moduli and fracture toughness on the ZrO content showed deviation from a simple linear relation. We show that elastic moduli drop at around x=0.25 and increase again for larger values of x, as has been observed in experiments. The reason of the drop is a softening owing to disordered atomistic structures induced by the solute zirconium atoms. We also find that stress-strain curves for the x=0.125 case show marked hysteresis owing to the existence of many meta-stable states. We show that this hysteresis leads to slightly increased fracture toughness, but it is not enough to account for the significant increase of fracture toughness observed in experiments.

Impact of stellar superflares on planetary habitability

Yamashiki, Yosuke*; Maehara, Hiroyuki*; Airapetian, V.*; Notsu, Yuta*; Sato, Tatsuhiko; Notsu, Shota*; Kuroki, Ryusuke*; Murashima, Keiya*; Sato, Hiroaki*; Namekata, Kosuke*; et al.

Astrophysical Journal, 881(2), p.114_1 - 114_24, 2019/08

https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab2a71

The impact of Stellar flares on extrasolar planetary systems has been discussed and argued, especially whether there is a potential impact on their life systems. Here, we propose a comprehensive evaluation system for stellar flares, focusing on Stellar Proton Events (SPE) on selected extrasolar planets with hypothetical atmospheres and oceans. This is done by cross-linking KIC flare-observed and flare-estimated stars by their start pots that are directly linked with the Monte Carlo simulation system PHITS through the exoplanetary database system ExoKyoto. The estimated dose at ground level for each planetary surface did not exceed the critical dose for complex animals.

Atomistic simulations for the effects of stacking fault energy on defect formations by displacement cascades in FCC metals under Poisson's deformation

Hayakawa, Sho*; Okita, Taira*; Itakura, Mitsuhiro; Kawabata, Tomoya*; Suzuki, Katsuyuki*

Journal of Materials Science, 54(16), p.11096 - 11110, 2019/08

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-019-03688-1

Activation measurement for thermal-neutron capture cross-section of Cesium-135

Nakamura, Shoji; Kimura, Atsushi; Iwamoto, Osamu; Shibahara, Yuji*; Uehara, Akihiro*; Fujii, Toshiyuki*

KURNS Progress Report 2018, P. 106, 2019/08

https://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/PUB/report/PR/ProgRep2018/ProgRep2018.html

Under the ImPACT project, the neutron capture cross-section measurements of Cesium-135 (Cs) among the long-lived fission products have been performed at Kyoto University. This paper reports measurements of the thermal-neutron capture cross-section of Cs at the Kyoto University Research Reactor (KUR).

Analyzing the cross slip motion of screw dislocations at finite temperatures in body-centered-cubic metals; Molecular statics and dynamics studies

Suzudo, Tomoaki; Onitsuka, Takashi*; Fukumoto, Kenichi*

Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering, 27(6), p.064001_1 - 064001_15, 2019/08

https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-651X/ab235e

Plasticity of body-centered-cubic (BCC) metals at low temperatures is determined by screw dislocation kinetics. Because the core of screw dislocation in these metals has non-planar structure, its motion is complex and unpredictable. For example, although density functional theory (DFT) predicts slip on a { 110 } plane, the actual slip plane at elevated temperatures departs from the prediction, its mechanism having been a mystery for decades. Here we conduct a series of molecular dynamics simulations to track the screw dislocation motion and successfully reproduced the transition of the slip plane. We then devised an algorithm to scrutinize the activation of dislocation jump over the Peierls barrier and discovered the possible origin of this unexpected phenomenon, i.e., a large fluctuation leads to the kink-pair nucleation for the cross-slip jump without transition of dislocation core structure.

A Biologically based mathematical model for spontaneous and ionizing radiation cataractogenesis

Sakashita, Tetsuya*; Sato, Tatsuhiko; Hamada, Nobuyuki*

PLOS ONE (Internet), 14(8), p.e0221579_1 - e0221579_20, 2019/08

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221579

Cataracts have long been known, but a biologically based mathematical model is still unavailable for cataratogenesis. We here report for the first time an in silico model for cataractogenesis. First, a simplified cell proliferation model was developed for human lens growth based on stem and progenitor cell proliferation as well as epithelial-fiber cell differentiation. Then, a model for spontaneous cataractogenesis was developed to reproduce the human data on a relationship between age and cataract incidence. Finally, a model for radiation cataractogenesis was developed that can reproduce the human data on a relationship between dose and cataract onset at various ages, which was further applied to estimate cataract incidence following chronic lifetime exposure.

Neutron-induced damage simulations; Beyond defect production cross-section, displacement per atom and iron-based metrics

Sublet, J.-Ch.*; Bondarenko, I. P.*; Bonny, G.*; Conlin, J. L.*; Gilbert, M. R.*; Greenwood, L. R.*; Griffin, P. J.*; Helgesson, P.*; Iwamoto, Yosuke; Khryachkov, V. A.*; et al.

European Physical Journal Plus (Internet), 134(7), p.350_1 - 350_50, 2019/07

https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2019-12758-y

Nuclear reaction with nuclear data is the origin of defects produced by cascade damage in irradiated materials. Therefore, it is important to consider nuclear reaction correctly for calculations of the damage energy of Primary Knock on Atom (PKA) and the number of Displacement Per Atom (DPA). Here, radiation damage metrics considering nuclear reaction enables us to simulate transport of each defect and clustering defects in the irradiated material. This paper reviews the theory of nuclear reaction and damage energy and describes the latest methodologies about uncertainty propagation and quantification in nuclear data and damage calculations based on molecular dynamics.

Simulation study on the design of nondestructive measurement system using fast neutron direct interrogation method to nuclear materials in fuel debris

Maeda, Makoto; Furutaka, Kazuyoshi; Kureta, Masatoshi; Ozu, Akira; Komeda, Masao; Toh, Yosuke

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 56(7), p.617 - 628, 2019/07

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2019.1611500

Unraveling anomalous isotope effect on hydrogen diffusivities in fcc metals from first principles including nuclear quantum effects

Kimizuka, Hajime*; Ogata, Shigenobu*; Shiga, Motoyuki

Physical Review B, 100(2), p.024104_1 - 024104_9, 2019/07

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.024104

The behavior of H isotopes in crystals is a fundamental and recurrent theme in materials physics. Especially, the information on H diffusion over a wide temperature range provides a critical insight into the quantum mechanical nature of the subject; however, this is not yet fully explored. From state-of-the-art ab initio calculations to treat both electrons and nuclei quantum mechanically, we found that the temperature dependence of H isotope diffusivities in face-centered-cubic (fcc) Pd has an unconventional "reversed S" shape on Arrhenius plots. Such irregular behavior is ascribed to the competition between different nuclear quantum effects with different temperature and mass dependencies, which leads to a peculiar situation, where the heavier tritium (H) diffuses faster than the lighter protium (H) in the limited temperature range of 80 - 400 K. This unveils the mechanism of anomalous crossovers between the normal and reversed isotope effects observed in the experiments at high and low temperatures.