Integrated thermal power measurement in the modified STACY for the performance inspections

Araki, Shohei; Aizawa, Eiju; Murakami, Takahiko; Arakaki, Yu; Tada, Yuta; Kamikawa, Yutaka; Hasegawa, Kenta; Yoshikawa, Tomoki; Sumiya, Masato; Seki, Masakazu; et al.

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 217, p.111323_1 - 111323_8, 2025/07

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2025.111323

JAEA has modified the STACY from a homogeneous system using solution fuel to a heterogeneous system using fuel rods in order to obtain criticality characteristics of fuel debris. The modification of the STACY was completed in December 2023. A series of performance inspections were conducted for the start of experimental operations. A new thermal power calibration is required for the performance inspections in order to operate at less than 200 W, which is the permitted thermal power. However, the thermal power measurement method and calibration data used in the former STACY is no longer available due to the modification of the modified STACY. We measured the thermal power of the STACY using the activation method that was improved to adapt to the measurement condition and calibrated the power meter system. Since the positions where activation foils could be installed were very limited, the thermal power was evaluated using numerical calculations supplemented by experimental data. Neutron flux data at the positions of the activation foil was measured by the activation method. Neutron distribution in the core was calculated by the Monte Carlo code MVP. A response function of the activation foil was calculated using the PHITS. The uncertainty of the thermal power measurement was conservatively estimated to be about 15%. Four operations were conducted for the thermal power measurement. The power meter was calibrated by using three operational data and tested with the one operational data. It was found that the indicated value of the meter adjusted by the STACY before the modification work would tend to overestimate the actual output by about 40%. In addition, the current calibration was able to calibrate the meter to within 3% accuracy.

Annual report of Nuclear Science Research Institute, JFY 2022

Nuclear Science Research Institute

JAEA-Review 2024-057, 178 Pages, 2025/03

JAEA-Review-2024-057.pdf:8.51MB

Nuclear Science Research Institute (NSRI) is composed of Planning and Management Department and six departments, namely Department of Operational Safety Administration, Department of Radiation Protection, Engineering Services Department, Department of Research Reactor and Tandem Accelerator, Department of Criticality and Hot Examination Technology and Department of Decommissioning and Waste Management, and each department manages facilities and develops related technologies to achieve the "Medium- to Long-term Plan" successfully and effectively. And, four research centers which are Advanced Science Research Center, Nuclear Science and Engineering Center, Nuclear Engineering Research Collaboration Center and Materials Sciences Research Center, belong to NSRI. In order to contribute the future research and development and to promote management business, this annual report summarizes information on the activities of NSRI of JFY 2022 as well as the activity on research and development carried out by Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science, Nuclear Safety Research Center and activities of Nuclear Human Resource Development Center, using facilities of NSRI.

Renovation and restart of STACY (Static Experiment Critical Facility)

Sono, Hiroki

Genshiryoku Kiko, Genken OB Kai Kaiho, (86), P. 2, 2025/01

The Static Experiment Critical Facility (STACY) was renovated from a "solution fuel reactor" to a "reactor using fuel rods and light water moderator", and restarted operation on August 2, 2024, after a hiatus of 13 years and 8 months. During that time, it took 8 years and 11 months to obtain its permission and approval, 3 years and 1 month for its construction, and 4 months for pre-operation inspections on the reactor performance. This article reports on the history of STACY from its birth to its restart of operation, as well as its future utilization.

Critical experiment plans on the new STACY to clarify the criticality characteristics of the molten core-concrete interaction products

Gunji, Satoshi; Araki, Shohei; Izawa, Kazuhiko; Suyama, Kenya

Proceedings of International Conference on Physics of Reactors (PHYSOR 2024) (Internet), p.227 - 236, 2024/04

https://doi.org/10.13182/PHYSOR24-43644/

It is considered that a large amount of fuel debris was generated in the TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident. In particular, the criticality characteristics of the fuel debris, including concrete components, which are products of molten core-concrete interaction (MCCI), have not been well investigated. In this study, to plan physical simulation in critical experiments at the critical assembly using pseudo fuel debris samples including concrete, we evaluated the sensitivity to the effective multiplication factor of the Si and Ca cross sections in the concrete-simulant sample based on the results of elemental analysis of the prototype. These sensitivity calculations were carried out for each sample loading method and composition. We focused on the energy profile of the sensitivity of the Ca capture reaction and confirmed that the shape of the sensitivity energy profile changed depending on the sample compositions and neutron moderation conditions. We could know the characteristics of each experimental method by clarifying the trends of sensitivity obtained in different experimental cases. It was found that increasing the amount of concrete in the samples and changing the neutron moderation conditions in the experimental core configurations produced similar changes in the shape of the sensitivity energy profile. This result shows the possibility of reproducing the characteristics of MCCI products through practical critical experiments using concrete materials that do not contain fissile materials.

Inter-codes and nuclear data comparison under collaboration works between IRSN and JAEA

Gunji, Satoshi; Araki, Shohei; Watanabe, Tomoaki; Fernex, F.*; Leclaire, N.*; Bardelay, A.*; Suyama, Kenya

Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC2023) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2023/10

Institut de radioprotection et de sret nuclaire (IRSN) and Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) have a long-standing partnership in the field of criticality safety. In this collaboration, IRSN and JAEA are planning a joint experiment using the new STACY critical assembly, modified by JAEA. In order to compare the codes (MVP3, MORET6, etc.) and nuclear data (JENDL and JEFF) used by both institutes in the planning of the STACY experiment, benchmark calculations of the Apparatus B and TCA, which are critical assemblies once owned by both institutes, benchmarks from the ICSBEP handbook and the computational model of the new STACY were performed. Including the new STACY calculation model, the calculations include several different neutron moderation conditions and critical water heights. There were slight systematic differences in the calculation results, which may have originated from the processing and/or format of the nuclear data libraries. However, it was found that the calculated results, including the new codes and the new nuclear data, are in good agreement with the experimental values. Therefore, there are no issues to use them for the design of experiments for the new STACY. Furthermore, the impact of the new TSL data included in JENDL-5 on the effective multiplication factor was investigated. Experimental validation for them will be completed by critical experiments of the new STACY by both institutes.

Critical assemblies in JAEA and the role of new STACY

Sono, Hiroki; Izawa, Kazuhiko; Yoritsune, Tsutomu; Suyama, Kenya; Tonoike, Kotaro

Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC2023) (Internet), 7 Pages, 2023/10

https://doi.org/10.11484/jaea-conf-2024-001

Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has constructed and operated nine critical assemblies. Of these nine facilities as of 2023, four have already been dismantled, four are under decommissioning, and only STACY is active but under temporally shutdown. STACY is scheduled to restart in 2024 after core modification from a "critical assembly using uranium nitrate solution fuel" to a "general-purpose critical assembly using uranium fuel rods and light-water moderator." The immediate objective of new STACY is to acquire criticality data for fuel debris removal from the damaged reactors in Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. After the critical experiment program regarding fuel debris, the new STACY is expected to be used for various R&D on next-generation power reactors and others. In addition, the new STACY will serve as an educational and training reactor. These activities are useful not only for Japan but also for international collaborative research and joint use.

Study on criticality safety control of fuel debris for validation of methodology applied to the safety regulation

Suyama, Kenya; Ueki, Taro; Gunji, Satoshi; Watanabe, Tomoaki; Araki, Shohei; Fukuda, Kodai; Yamane, Yuichi; Izawa, Kazuhiko; Nagaya, Yasunobu; Kikuchi, Takeo; et al.

Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC2023) (Internet), 6 Pages, 2023/10

To remove and store safely the fuel debris generated by the severe accident of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011 is one of the most important and challenging topics for decommissioning of the damaged reactors in Fukushima. To validate the adopted method for the evaluation of criticality safety control of the fuel debris through comparison with the experimental data obtained by the criticality experiments, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) of Japan funds a research and development project which was entrusted to the Nuclear Safety Research Center (NSRC) of Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) from 2014. In this project, JAEA has been conducting such activities as i) comprehensive computation of the criticality characteristics of the fuel debris and making database (criticality map of the fuel debris), ii) development of new continuous energy Monte Carlo code, iii) evaluation of criticality accident and iv) modification of the critical assembly STACY for the experiments for validation of criticality safety control methodology. After the last ICNC2019, the project has the substantial progress in the modification of STACY which will start officially operation from May 2024 and the development of the Monte Carlo Code "Solomon" suitable for the criticality calculation for materials having spatially random distribution complies with the power spectrum. We present the whole picture of this research and development project and status of each technical topics in the session.

Annual report of Nuclear Science Research Institute, JFY2020

Nuclear Science Research Institute, Sector of Nuclear Science Research

JAEA-Review 2023-009, 165 Pages, 2023/06

JAEA-Review-2023-009.pdf:5.76MB

Nuclear Science Research Institute (NSRI) is composed of Planning and Management Department and six departments, namely Department of Operational Safety Administration, Department of Radiation Protection, Engineering Services Department, Department of Research Reactor and Tandem Accelerator, Department of Criticality and Hot Examination Technology and Department of Decommissioning and Waste Management, and each department manages facilities and develops related technologies to achieve the "Medium- to Long-term Plan" successfully and effectively. And, four research centers which are Advanced Science Research Center, Nuclear Science and Engineering Center, Nuclear Engineering Research Collaboration Center and Materials Sciences Research Center, belong to NSRI. In order to contribute the future research and development and to promote management business, this annual report summarizes information on the activities of NSRI of JFY 2020 as well as the activity on research and development carried out by Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science, Nuclear Safety Research Center and activities of Nuclear Human Resource Development Center, using facilities of NSRI.

Preliminary analysis of randomized configuration patterns in modified STACY core

Shiba, Shigeki*; Iwahashi, Daiki*; Okawa, Tsuyoshi*; Gunji, Satoshi; Izawa, Kazuhiko; Suyama, Kenya

Proceedings of 30th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE30) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2023/05

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has tackled the experimental approach for determining the criticality of pseudo-fuel debris plausibly simulating actual fuel debris since 2014, collaborating with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. To elucidate the characteristics of the pseudo-fuel debris, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency modified the STACY (STAtic experiment Critical facilitY) to conduct critical experiments simulating fuel debris. Thus, we proposed three types of modified STACY core configurations. In critical experiments in the modified STACY core, it is important to judge whether the proposed modified STACY core configurations are representative of molten core-concrete interaction debris or not. In this study, we built pseudo-fuel debris models considering a volume ratio of pseudo-fuel debris to moderation (V/V) and calculated uncertainty-based similarity values (C) between the modified STACY core configurations and pseudo-fuel debris models using Tools for Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis Methodology Implementation-Indices and Parameters (TSUNAMI-IP) in SCALE 6.2. Consequently, the modified STACY core configuration loading structure rods we proposed completely resulted in high similarity to the pseudo-fuel debris models through V/V values. The main contributions to C values were U , U , and Fe (n,), except for the pseudo-fuel debris model, including extremely high concrete components.

Annual report of Nuclear Science Research Institute, JFY2018

Nuclear Science Research Institute, Sector of Nuclear Science Research

JAEA-Review 2021-072, 141 Pages, 2022/03

JAEA-Review-2021-072.pdf:7.14MB

Nuclear Science Research Institute (NSRI) is composed of Planning and Management Department and six departments, namely Department of Operational Safety Administration, Department of Radiation Protection, Engineering Services Department, Department of Research Reactor and Tandem Accelerator, Department of Criticality and Hot Examination Technology and Department of Decommissioning and Waste Management, and each department manages facilities and develops related technologies to achieve the "Medium- to Long-term Plan" successfully and effectively. In order to contribute the future research and development and to promote management business, this annual report summarizes information on the activities of NSRI of JFY 2018 as well as the activity on research and development carried out by Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science, Nuclear Safety Research Center, Advanced Science Research Center, Nuclear Science and Engineering Center and Materials Science Research Center, and activities of Nuclear Human Resource Development Center, using facilities of NSRI.