Development of fabrication and inspection technologies for oxidation-resistant fuel element for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors

Aihara, Jun; Yasuda, Atsushi*; Ueta, Shohei; Ogawa, Hiroaki; Honda, Masaki*; Ohira, Koichi*; Tachibana, Yukio

Nippon Genshiryoku Gakkai Wabun Rombunshi, 18(4), p.237 - 245, 2019/12

https://doi.org/10.3327/taesj.J19.002

Development of fabrication and inspection technologies of oxidation resistant fuel element for improvement of safety of high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) in severe oxidation accident was carried out. Simulated coated fuel particles (CFPs), alumina particles, were over-coated with mixed powder of Si, C and small amount of resin to form over-coated particles, and over-coated particles were molded and hot-pressed to sinter simulated oxidation resistant fuel elements with SiC/C mixed matrix. Simulated oxidation resistant fuel elements with matrix whose Si/C mole ratio is 1.00 were fabricated. Failure fraction of CFPs in fuel elements is one of very important inspection subjects of HTGR fuel. It is essential that CFPs are extracted from fuel elements without additional failure. Development of method for extraction of CFPs was carried out. Desolation of SiC by KOH method or pressurized acidolysis method should be applied to extraction of CFPs.

GPU acceleration of communication avoiding Chebyshev basis conjugate gradient solver for multiphase CFD simulations

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

Proceedings of 10th Workshop on Latest Advances in Scalable Algorithms for Large-Scale Systems (ScalA 2019), p.1 - 8, 2019/11

https://doi.org/10.1109/ScalA49573.2019.00006

Iterative methods for solving large linear systems are common parts of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes. The Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (P-CG) method is one of the most widely used iterative methods. However, in the P-CG method, global collective communication is a crucial bottleneck especially on accelerated computing platforms. To resolve this issue, communication avoiding (CA) variants of the P-CG method are becoming increasingly important. In this paper, the P-CG and Preconditioned Chebyshev Basis CA CG (P-CBCG) solvers in the multiphase CFD code JUPITER are ported to the latest V100 GPUs. All GPU kernels are highly optimized to achieve about 90% of the roofline performance, the block Jacobi preconditioner is re-designed to extract high computing power of GPUs, and the remaining bottleneck of halo data communication is avoided by overlapping communication and computation. The overall performance of the P-CG and P-CBCG solvers is determined by the competition between the CA properties of the global collective communication and the halo data communication, indicating an importance of the inter-node interconnect bandwidth per GPU. The developed GPU solvers are accelerated up to 2x compared with the former CPU solvers on KNLs, and excellent strong scaling is achieved up to 7,680 GPUs on the Summit.

A Proposal of inelastic constitutive equations of lead alloys used for structural tests simulating severe accident conditions

Hashidate, Ryuta; Onizawa, Takashi; Wakai, Takashi; Kasahara, Naoto*

Proceedings of 2019 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference (PVP 2019) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2019/07

Under the severe accident conditions, structural materials of nuclear power plants are subjected to excessive high temperature. Although it is very essential to clarify how the structure collapses under the severe accident conditions, the failure mechanisms in such high temperatures are not clarified. However, it is very difficult and expensive to perform structural tests using actual structural materials. Therefore, we propose to use lead alloys instead of actual structural materials. Because the strength of lead alloys is much poorer than that of the actual structural materials, failure can be observed at low temperature and by small load. For demonstration of analogy between the failure mechanisms of lead alloys structure at low temperature and those of the actual structures at high temperature, numerical analyses are required. So, we confirm the material characteristics of lead alloys and develop inelastic constitutive equations of lead alloy required for finite element analyses.

Exascale simulations of fusion plasmas

Idomura, Yasuhiro; Watanabe, Tomohiko*; Todo, Yasushi*

Shimyureshon, 38(2), p.79 - 86, 2019/06

We promote the research and development of exascale fusion plasma simulations on Post-K towards estimation and prediction of core plasma performance, and exploration of improved operation scenarios on the next generation fusion experimental reactor ITER. In this paper, we review developed exascale simulation technologies and outcomes from validation studies on existing experimental devices, and discuss perspectives on exascale fusion plasma simulations on Post-K.

Development of fabrication technology for oxidation-resistant fuel elements for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors

Aihara, Jun; Honda, Masaki*; Ueta, Shohei; Ogawa, Hiroaki; Ohira, Koichi*; Tachibana, Yukio

Nippon Genshiryoku Gakkai Wabun Rombunshi, 18(1), p.29 - 36, 2019/03

https://doi.org/10.3327/taesj.J17.027

Japan Atomic Energy Agency carried out development of fabrication technology of oxidation resistant fuel element for improvement of safety of high temperature gas-cooled reactors in serious oxidation accident, based on precursor research in former JAEA. Dummy coated fuel particles (alumina particles) were over-coated with mixed powder of Si, C and small amount of resin to form over-coated particles, and over-coated particles were molded and hot-pressed to sinter dummy oxidation resistant fuel elements with SiC/C mixed matrix. We fabricated dummy oxidation resistant fuel elements with matrix whose Si/C mole ratio (about 0.551) is three times as large as that in precursor research. Si peak was not detected by X-ray diffraction of matrix. Better oxidation resistant was confirmed with oxidation test in 20% O at 1673 K than that of ordinal fuel compact with ordinal graphite/carbon matrix. All dummy coated fuel particles were held in specimen after 10 h oxidation.

Decreasing trend of ambient dose equivalent rates over a wide area in eastern Japan until 2016 evaluated by car-borne surveys using KURAMA systems

Ando, Masaki; Mikami, Satoshi; Tsuda, Shuichi; Yoshida, Tadayoshi; Matsuda, Norihiro; Saito, Kimiaki

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, 192, p.385 - 398, 2018/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2018.07.009

Car-borne surveys using KURAMA systems have been conducted over a wide area in eastern Japan since 2011. The measurement data collected until 2016 was analyzed, and decreasing trend of the dose rates in regions within 80 km of Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant were examined. The averaged dose rates tended to decrease considerably with respect to the physical decay of radiocaesium, and the ecological half-lives of the fast and slow decay components were estimated. The decrease of the dose rate in the forest was slower than its decrease in other regions, and the decrease of the dose rate in urban area was the fastest. The decrease in the dose rates obtained via the car-borne survey was larger than that obtained on flat ground with few disturbances using survey meters approximately 1.5 y after the accident; hereafter, the decrease in the dose rates obtained via the car-borne survey was same as the latter measurement.

Study of the magnetization distribution in a grain-oriented magnetic steel using pulsed polarized neutron imaging

Hiroi, Kosuke; Shinohara, Takenao; Hayashida, Hirotoshi*; Parker, J. D.*; Su, Y.; Oikawa, Kenichi; Kai, Tetsuya; Kiyanagi, Yoshiaki*

Physica B; Condensed Matter, 551, p.146 - 151, 2018/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physb.2018.05.013

Communication avoiding multigrid preconditioned conjugate gradient method for extreme scale multiphase CFD simulations

Idomura, Yasuhiro; Ina, Takuya*; Yamashita, Susumu; Onodera, Naoyuki; Yamada, Susumu; Imamura, Toshiyuki*

Proceedings of 9th Workshop on Latest Advances in Scalable Algorithms for Large-Scale Systems (ScalA 2018) (Internet), p.17 - 24, 2018/11

https://doi.org/10.1109/ScalA.2018.00006

A communication avoiding (CA) multigrid preconditioned conjugate gradient method (CAMGCG) is applied to the pressure Poisson equation in a multiphase CFD code JUPITER, and its computational performance and convergence property are compared against CA Krylov methods. In the JUPITER code, the CAMGCG solver has robust convergence properties regardless of the problem size, and shows both communication reduction and convergence improvement, leading to higher performance gain than CA Krylov solvers, which achieve only the former. The CAMGCG solver is applied to extreme scale multiphase CFD simulations with billion DOFs, and it is shown that compared with a preconditioned CG solver, the number of iterations is reduced to , and speedup is achieved with keeping excellent strong scaling up to 8,000 nodes on the Oakforest-PACS.

Development of probabilistic risk assessment methodology against volcanic eruption for sodium-cooled fast reactors

Yamano, Hidemasa; Nishino, Hiroyuki; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Yamamoto, Takahiro*

ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part B; Mechanical Engineering, 4(3), p.030902_1 - 030902_9, 2018/09

https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4037877

This paper describes volcanic probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methodology development for sodium-cooled fast reactors. The volcanic ash could potentially clog air filters of air-intakes that are essential for the decay heat removal. The degree of filter clogging can be calculated by atmospheric concentration of ash and tephra fallout duration and also suction flow rate of each component. The atmospheric concentration can be calculated by deposited tephra layer thickness, tephra fallout duration and fallout speed. This study evaluated a volcanic hazard using a combination of tephra fragment size, layer thickness and duration. In this paper, each component functional failure probability was defined as a failure probability of filter replacement obtained by using a grace period to a filter failure limit. Finally, based on an event tree, a core damage frequency was estimated about 310/year in total by multiplying discrete hazard probabilities by conditional decay heat removal failure probabilities. A dominant sequence was led by the loss of decay heat removal system due to the filter clogging after the loss of emergency power supply. In addition, sensitivity analyses have investigated the effects of a tephra arrival reduction factor and pre-filter covering.

Development of a probabilistic risk assessment methodology against a combination hazard of strong wind and rainfall for sodium-cooled fast reactors

Yamano, Hidemasa; Nishino, Hiroyuki; Kurisaka, Kenichi

Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 5(4), p.18-00093_1 - 18-00093_19, 2018/08

https://doi.org/10.1299/mej.18-00093

This paper describes the development of a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methodology against a combination hazard of strong wind and rainfall. In this combination hazard PRA, a hazard curve is evaluated in terms of maximum instantaneous wind speed, hourly rainfall, and rainfall duration. A scenario analysis has provided event sequences resulting from the combination hazard of strong wind and rainfall. The typical event sequence was characterized by the function loss of auxiliary cooling system, of which heat transfer tubes could crack due to cycle fatigue caused by cyclic contacts with rain droplets. This cycle fatigue crack could occur if rain droplets enter into the air cooler of the system following the coolers roof failure due to strong-wind-generated missile impact. This event sequence has been incorporated into an event tree which addresses component failure caused by the combination hazard. As a result, a core damage frequency has been estimated to be about 10/year in total by multiplying discrete hazard frequencies by conditional decay heat removal failure probabilities. The dominant sequence is the manual operation failure of an air cooler damper following the failure of external fuel tank due to the missile impact. The dominant hazard is the maximum instantaneous wind speed of 20-40 m/s, the hourly rainfall of 20-40 mm/h, and the rainfall duration of 0-10 h.