At the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), a pulsed spallation neutron source provides neutrons with high intensity and narrow pulse width pulse to promote researches on a variety of science in the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF). It was designed to be driven by a proton beam with an energy of 3 GeV, a power of 1 MW at a repetition rate of 25 Hz, that is world’s highest power level. It is still on the way towards the goal to accomplish the operation with a 1 MW proton beam. In this review, distinctive features of the target-moderator-reflector system of the pulsed spallation neutron source are presented.

A lead bismuth eutectic (LBE) spallation target will be installed in the Target Test Facility (TEF-T) in the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). The spallation target vessel filled with LBE is made of type 316L stainless steel. However, various damages, such as erosion/corrosion damage and liquid metal embrittlement caused by contact with flowing LBE at high temperature, and irradiation hardening caused by protons and neutrons, may be inflicted on the target vessel, which will deteriorate the steel and might break the vessel. To monitor the target vessel for prevention of an accident, an ultrasonic technique has been proposed to establish off-line evaluation for estimating vessel material status during the target maintenance period. Basic R&D must be carried out to clarify the dependency of ultrasonic wave propagation behavior on material microstructures and obtain fundamental knowledge. As a first step, ultrasonic waves scattered by the grains of type 316L stainless steel are investigated using new experimental and numerical approaches in the present study. The results show that the grain size can be evaluated exactly and quantitatively by calculating the attenuation coefficient of the ultrasonic waves scattered by the grains. The results also show that the scattering regimes of ultrasonic waves depend heavily on the ratio of wavelength to average grain size, and are dominated by grains of extraordinarily large size along the wave propagation path.

Widely used for structural materials in nuclear engineering, 316L austenitic stainless steel undergoes very high cycle fatigue (VHCF) throughout its service life. Since defects caused by service conditions are unavoidable in many engineering components during service life, the effects should be properly understood. In the present study, the effect of surface defects on the VHCF behavior were investigated on solution annealed (SA) and cold-worked (CW) 316L. Surface defects were artificially created using indentation. The VHCF test was conducted using an ultrasonic fatigue testing system. The results showed that the fatigue crack initiation was independent of the indent with the applied range of depth in this research. Furthermore, the critical depth of the indent was evaluated based on an empirical formula (Murakami’s model). In the case of SA 316L, the VHCF strength was not affected when the indent depth was less than 40 μm, which is consistent with the value obtained from the empirical formula. In the case of 20% CW 316L, the VHCF strength was not affected when the indent depth was less than 80 μm. The experimental results, i.e., the critical depth of the indent, were much larger than the results obtained from the empirical formula, and might have been caused by the plastic deformation, residual stress, and probable deformation-induced martensite transition around the indent.