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J-PARC Project Newsletter
No. 46, Oct. 2011
Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex under operation jointly
by the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and
the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)
http://j-parc.jp/index-e.html
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HEADLINES AND CONTENTS
1. [Overview]
BUDGET REQUEST FOR JFY2012.
RESTORATION WORK CONTINUES WITH AN ANTICIPATION TO HAVE BEAMS IN
DECEMBER.
J-PARC REVIEW WILL BE HELD FROM THE NEXT YEAR.
J-PARC IAC WILL BE SCHEDULED IN FEBRUARY.
2. [Accelerator Division]
RECOVERY STATUS OF THE ACCELERATOR FROM THE EARTHQUAKE DISASTER.
J-PARC HOSTED THE 4TH ACFA HPPA MINIWORKSHOP.
3. [Nuclear and Particle Physics Division]
NEW PRODUCTION TARGET FOR HADRON HALL.
T2K STATUS: RECOVERY FROM EARTHQUAKE DAMAGES FOR BEAM IN DECEMBER.
4. [Materials and Life Science Division]
STEADY-GOING RECOVERY AND PROGRESS FOR RESUMING OPERATION.
RECOVERY OF MLF INSTRUMENTS HAS PROGRESSED.
1ST AOCNS WILL BE HELD ON NOV. 20-24 AT TSUKUBA, JAPAN.
DEVELOPED A 1-DIMENSIONAL ELLIPTIC MIRROR.
A KICKER-SEPTUM SYSTEM IS UNDER INSTALLATION.
5. [Exotic Nuclear Science Group]
TOKAI RADIOACTIVE ION ACCELERATOR COMPLEX (TRIAC) WILL BE TRANSFERRED
TO KOREA.
6. [Nuclear Transmutation Section]
DEVELOPMENT OF ULTRASONIC TRANSDUCER FOR HIGH TEMPERATURE CONDITION
7. [Safety Division]
APPLICATION FOR LICENSES FOR THE OPERATION OF THE FACILITY WERE
SUBMITTED TO THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, CULTURE, SPORTS, SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY (MEXT) ON SEP. 16.
8. [Announcement of Symposia and Meetings]
9. [Editorial Note]
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1. [Overview] by Shoji NAGAMIYA
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BUDGET REQUEST FOR JFY2012.
Our funding agency, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
and Technology (MEXT), submitted a budget request for us to the
Ministry of Finance in September/October. The final decision will be
made in December, so that nobody knows what would happen at this
moment. However, the requested budget is to operate 9 cycles in the
JFY2012, whereas the 9 cycles correspond to approximately a 200-day
operation for users that means the full usage of the J-PARC.
In addition, the budget to install a 400 MeV Linac (as we planned in
the fourth year and the final year) and budgets to power up the MR
and to construct a neutron beam line are also included. Furthermore,
already approved amount of 17 Oku (1.7 billion) Yen for the Linac +
3 GeV Upgrade will be available in JFY2012.
From the next year, the operational budget for the Linac and
3 GeV will be covered entirely by a new budget scheme that is directly
controlled by the Government instead of JAEA. This change certainly
guarantees all J-PARC facilities to be open to all domestic and
international users, such as universities, institutions, and industry.
RESTORATION WORK CONTINUES WITH AN ANTICIPATION TO HAVE BEAMS
IN DECEMBER.
Our recovery work is steadily and smoothly in progress.
However, we had faced serious difficulties on the shortage of budget
in summer.
We had a number of discussions in order to minimize effects in
the anticipated beam schedule, and rearranged work plans for item by
item. Finally, we succeeded in postponing some elements in November or
later without changing the beam schedule of December and maintain the
original budget. For example, the road repair in front of the Linac
building has been postponed later.
We expect to have the 3rd supplemental budget for J-PARC soon.
If this budget comes in, then, we will start restoration work of the
elements, which had been postponed in so far, for the J-PARC full
recovery.
J-PARC REVIEW WILL BE HELD FROM THE NEXT YEAR.
The review of the J-PARC activity has been conducted by eminent
review panels approximately every four to five years. The first one
was held in 1999-2000 before the project started. The previous one,
which was the third one, was held in 2007, just before the operation
of J-PARC started. The next one is the fourth major review.
It is anticipated that the 4th review will be held for, at least,
6 months from January of 2012 through the end of June of 2012.
The review issues will be 1) past achievements, 2) effects from the
earthquake, 3) a roadmap toward power-up to 1 MW, 4) future plans,
5) organization for operations, etc. Inside the J-PARC Center a
special team has been created to prepare this review. Also, this
team will interact frequently with our funding agencies, MEXT.
J-PARC IAC WILL BE SCHEDULED IN FEBRUARY.
The next International Advisory Committee (IAC) will be held on
February 27(Mon)- 28(Tue). Around that time, many committees such as
Accelerator Technical Advisory Committee (A-TAC) and other committees
will also be held.
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2. [Accelerator Division] by Kazuo HASEGAWA
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RECOVERY STATUS OF THE ACCELERATOR FROM THE EARTHQUAKE DISASTER.
The restoration of the accelerator from the earthquake disaster
is proceeding on schedule in general, and resumption of beam is in
prospect from the middle of December.
In the linac, the cooling water system began operating by using
a temporary water supply system and it permitted a full-scale test
of the ion source and the electromagnet power supplies. As a result
of this, progress was made to confirm the soundness of the components.
Precision alignment of the acceleration cavities such as Drift Tube
Linac (DTL) and Separated-type Drift Tube Linac (SDTL) has been
completed and it has aligned at 0.1 mm or less to the beam line.
As a next step, reinstallation of vacuum pumps and waveguide is
underway. A PPS (Personnel Protection System) inspection has been
passed by the radiation safety manager of J-PARC for high-power
conditioning of acceleration cavities. The high power conditioning of
the RFQ (Radio Frequency Quadrupole linac) will be followed by that
of the DTL and SDTL cavities. On the restoration construction work,
repair on partitioning wall, doors, fire extinguisher water tank,
ducts and plumbing have been advanced. An oil leak is found in all
three turbo refrigerators for air-conditioning and a repair plan is
under arrangement.
In the RCS (3-GeV synchrotron), repair work by the construction
company has been completed and operation test of air conditioning and
pumps has started. As a result, it was found that one of three turbo
refrigerators had faults and repair work is needed. Test operations of
some of the accelerator components have been performed for 24 hours
continuously. As a result, four of 24 units of dry scroll pumps
stopped although there were no vacuum leaks. For this reason,
we decided to perform total maintenance check of the pumps.
The restoration work of the cooling water system has been completed
and the test operation will be finished by the end of October. Then,
we will perform the power test of accelerator components.
In the MR (50-GeV synchrotron), alignment work of magnets has
continued. The skill level has been going up gradually, and work
will be expected to be finished by the end of October. In addition to
the earthquake restoration, some work for performance improvement has
been carried out. The cooling water of RF system was together with the
electromagnet system until now. The separation work in order to avoid
the influence of corrosion by copper ions has been underway. A pump
system has been installed in the machine room No.2 and the piping
work to the cavity has been finished. A test operation will be
expected early in November. In addition to that, layout change has
been advanced as a part of power upgrade of the ring collimator.
A movable type shield and new two absorbers have been installed.
The further improvement in beam power will be expected with
additional collimators installed next year.
J-PARC HOSTED THE 4TH ACFA HPPA MINIWORKSHOP.
The 4th ACFA (Asian Committee for Future Accelerators) HPPA
(High Power Proton Accelerator) mini-workshop was held at IQBRC
(Ibaraki Quantum Beam Research Center) on October 5-6
(http://www-conf.kek.jp/acfa-hppa11/). Nearly 50 accelerator experts
from Korea, China and Japan attended the workshop. The main topic of
this workshop was commissioning and operation of HPPA. The 16 talks
were presented on Korean PEFP (Proton Engineering Frontier Project),
Chinese ADS (Accelerator Driven System) and CSNS (Chinese Spallation
Neutron Source), and J-PARC. The lively discussion was carried out and
we shared knowledge and experiences on the Asian HPPA activities.
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3. [Nuclear and Particle Physics Division] by Y. YAMANOI & T.TSUKAMOTO
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NEW PRODUCTION TARGET FOR HADRON HALL. (by Y. YAMANOI)
The T1 target is the only production target in the Hadron
Experimental Hall at present. The present production target designed
for the beam power of 750 kW is a rotating nickel disk of direct
water-cooling and assumes beam loss of 30%. However, even before the
Great East Japan Earthquake, the proton beam extracted from MR to
the Hadron Hall was approximately 3.0 kW because of the difficulty of
reducing beam loss at the extraction devices.
The radiation shield structure around the T1 was, however,
designed and constructed against the 30% loss of 750kW beam, which
means the absolute loss of 250kW at the T1 target. The yield of
secondary particles can be increased if we can use a thicker and
heavier target even for the present relatively low primary proton
intensity. Therefore, we decided to install the platinum square bar
target with indirect water-cooling. The thickness of this Pt target
is equivalent to 50% beam loss, and is known from the preliminary
experiment to provide approximately twice as many kaons to
experiments than the rotating nickel target.
The temperature of this Pt target will reach approximately 850
degree Celsius at the primary proton beam power of 50 kW. Then large
shear stress by thermal expansion occurs in the bonding plane of Pt
target and Cu block prepared for the indirect cooling. In order to
avoid this problem, a nickel sheet was put between the Pt bar and
the Cu block, and the bond of Pt, Ni, Cu was made by the hot isostatic
pressing (H.I.P) method. In the next period (the first beam time
after the Great Earthquake), we are going to use this Pt target to
supply secondary beams to experiments.
T2K STATUS: RECOVERY FROM EARTHQUAKE DAMAGES FOR BEAM IN DECEMBER.
(by T. TSUKAMOTO)
The repair work of neutrino facility and neutrino beam line to
recover from the earthquake damages is continuing for beam expected
in December. Facility for recovery work of the neutrino beam line
is almost ready and there remains some civil engineering work to
recover subsided ground, which will be started in October or in the
beginning of November.
Re-alignment of superconducting magnets is finished and normal
conduction magnets will be re-aligned until the middle of October.
Inspection of beam monitors confirmed that they are healthy
(not broken) and there remains small works for recommissioning them.
Test operation of the horns was done successfully.
Detailed inspection of T2K near detector ND280 found a problem
in P0D (pi-zero detector) readout electronics. We will open the
ND280 magnet in November for repair of P0D readout electronics,
then will close it by the end of December. Inspection of the
cooling water system for the ND280 magnet by engineers of the
German company was finished in the beginning of October and then
test operation of the magnet is done successfully.
T2K collaboration meeting was held at Tokai from September 26
to October 1, where not only status of recovery but also progress
of analysis were reported, and there were discussions to finalize
the analysis based on the data taken until the earthquake.
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4. [Materials and Life Science Division] by Masatoshi ARAI
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STEADY-GOING RECOVERY AND PROGRESS FOR RESUMING OPERATION.
1. Neutron Source
The Materials and Life science experimental Facility (MLF)
building and its surrounding grounds have been repaired and
conventional facilities in MLF have been restored almost to their
original conditions.
Vacuum breaks found in aluminum neutron beam ducts of neutron
beam shutter blocks is under smooth recovery. Measures to prevent
loosening of bolts for the duct flanges by impulsive force are being
taken for all the 17 ducts that are currently in use.
A liquid nitrogen storage tank and a helium buffer tank for
the cryogenic hydrogen system, both of which are 2.5 m in diameter
and 10 m in height and were leaned by ground subsidence, were made
upright. The first operation of the system after the earthquake is
scheduled in November.
A gas supplying system for a new target vessel with a bubbler
that is able to generate microbubbles expected to mitigate the
pressure waves is being installed onto the target trolley. A
cutting device to get PIE (Post Irradiation Examination) specimens
from the first target vessel was tested and improved to have enough
power to cut it out.
RECOVERY OF MLF INSTRUMENTS HAS PROGRESSED.
1ST AOCNS WILL BE HELD ON NOV. 20-24 AT TSUKUBA, JAPAN.
2. Neutron Science
Re-installing many of beamline front shields, which are stacked
at the upstream position in each beamline and some of which severely
moved and leaned, has been carried out for three months from June,
and completed in the middle of September. Thousands of clasps to
protect slips of the front shield blocks were attached.
The subsidence of the annex buildings reached as large as 15 cm.
In the west annex building where BL18 (SENJU), BL19 (TAKUMI) and
BL20 (iMATERIA) are located, all of the shielding and instruments
were removed from the building before August, and then the building
was elevated by a concrete injection method. From the beginning of
October, the shielding and instruments once taken away will be
brought back and realignment and offline commissioning will be
started.
For the user operation of the 2011B period (January to March,
2012), 50 neutron proposals have been submitted for 2 cycles in
February and March; after evaluation by four referees, all the
proposals will be reviewed by the neutron science proposal review
committee (NSPRC) held on November 4th, and the results will be
approved by the MLF advisory board on November 14th.
We are collaborating extensively for the 1st Asia-Oceania
Conference on Neutron Scattering (AOCNS) to be held on Nov. 20-24,
2011 at Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, organized by the Japanese Society
for Neutron Science (JSNS) and the Asia-Oceania Neutron Scattering
Association (AONSA). Please visit the web site below for details.
http://j-parc.jp/MatLife/en/meetings/1stAOCNS
DEVELOPED A 1-DIMENSIONAL ELLIPTIC MIRROR.
3. Neutron Instrument
A 1-dimensional elliptic mirror has been developed in
combination with a supermirror (m=4) coated with ion-beam sputtering
and precise elliptic surface figured with numerically-controlled
local wet etching process. Neutrons in wideband wavelength were
focused with a focal spot size down to 0.1 mm and peak intensity gain
up to 52 without significant diffuse scattering.
A KICKER-SEPTUM SYSTEM IS UNDER INSTALLATION.
4. Muon Science Facility (MUSE)
MUSE staff have been working on fixing damage caused by the
earthquake on March 11, 2011. The helium ducts, control cables,
power cables, compressed air piping, and support stand for the on-line
refrigerator system were damaged, due to a settlement, about 10 cm
around at 1.5 m outside the MLF building. They were replaced in
accordance with the high pressure gas regulations and the systems are
now under the process of inspection. The proton beam transport line
from the 3-GeV Rapid Cycling Synchrotron to MLF (3NBT) was severely
damaged at the expansion joint to MLF. For the repairing of the wall,
water ducts for the air circulation systems for the proton beam tunnels
in the vicinity of the muon target were removed and are planned to be
re-installed in October. Anchor bolts split out from the concrete
blocks above the Decay-Surface Muon Line (D-line) ceiling were fixed.
We are planning to recover from all the damage by the end of November,
2011, anticipating the beam time planned on this December 12th, 2011.
We are now working on installation of a kicker and septum system
to allow a single bunched muon beam up to 60 MeV/c towards Decay-
Surface Muon Instruments (D1 and D2 Instruments) area in the MUSE
secondary D-line.
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5. [Exotic Nuclear Science Group] by Hiroari MIYATAKE
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TOKAI RADIOACTIVE ION ACCELERATOR COMPLEX (TRIAC) WILL BE TRANSFERRED
TO KOREA.
TRIAC is an ISOL based radioactive ion beam (RIB) facility at the
Tokai campus. It was shut down this March after five years of
operation for users, and the exotic nuclear science group has been
moving to RIKEN for a new project relevant to the ISOL facility of the
second generation. Existing accelerators, charge breeder, and beam
lines of TRIAC will be transferred to the Korea Atomic Energy Research
Institute (KAERI) within this year. These devices will be
reconstructed there under the collaboration with the exotic nuclear
science group for R&D works of the future large facility.
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6. [Nuclear Transmutation Section] by Hiroyuki OIGAWA
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DEVELOPMENT OF ULTRASONIC TRANSDUCER FOR HIGH TEMPERATURE CONDITION.
Technology acquisition for liquid metal as a spallation target
and core coolant is one of the critical challenges in the development of
an accelerator-driven system (ADS) for transmutation of long-lived
nuclear waste. From this viewpoint, the flow measurement of the liquid
metal is very important to validate the feasibility of a design and to
know the local corrosion of materials, but such a measurement in a high
temperature condition is not so easy because of its physical
characteristics. In the Transmutation Section, a flow visualization
technique has been developed by using the ultrasonic velocity profiler
method. The maximum temperature of the conventional transducer for
the flow measurement is about 250 degrees Celsius, though the required
temperature range is about 300 to 500 degrees in ADS. Thus, development
of a new transducer has been started, where comprehensive investigation
for structure and material is underway. One of the prototype transducers
adopts a Li oxide element, which is expected to show good adaptability
to the maximum temperature condition.
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7. [Safety Division] by Taichi MIURA and Hiroshi NAKASHIMA
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APPLICATION FOR LICENSES FOR THE OPERATION OF THE FACILITY WERE
SUBMITTED TO THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, CULTURE, SPORTS, SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY (MEXT) ON SEP. 16.
The 11th Radiation Safety Committee of J-PARC met on July 29
and discussed the alterative application of J-PARC facilities.
The main topics are the new secondary beam lines including the muon
beam line in the Materials and Life Science Facility.
These applications were submitted to the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) on September 16.
The operation license is expected to be issued in December.
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8. [Announcement of Symposia and Meetings]
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1) 1st Asia-Oceania Conference on Neutron Scattering (AOCNS), Nov.
20-24, 2011, Tsukuba, Ibaraki (Language: English)
http://j-parc.jp/MatLife/en/meetings/1stAOCNS
2) 3rd MLF Symposium, Jan. 19-20, 2012, Tokai, Ibaraki (Language:
Japanese)
http://j-parc.jp/MatLife/ja/meetings/MLFsympo/index.html
3) 3rd Japan Spallation Neutron Source (JSNS) International Advisory
Committee (NIAC-3), Feb. 8-10, 2012, Tokai, Ibaraki (Language:
English)
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9. [Editorial Note]
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Editorial Board:
Toshifumi TSUKAMOTO (Chair): toshifumi.tsukamoto@kek.jp
Fujio MAEKAWA: maekawa.fujio@jaea.go.jp
Takashi ITO: itou.takashi@jaea.go.jp
Dick MISCHKE (English Editor): mischke@triumf.ca
Chikako KAIBARA (Secretary): kaibara.chikako@jaea.go.jp
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