The Second 2017 Fukushima Research Conference (FRC).

The Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning (CLADS), Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) held the FY2017 second Fukushima Research Conference entitled “Workshop on Fuel/Core Degradation during Severe Accident among the Experts of Materials Science, Thermodynamics, Severe Accident Analysis and Modeling” on July 5 and 6, 2017 at the “Manabi-no-Mori” in Tomioka Town, Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture.

The objective of the workshop was to share cross-cutting information on, 1) the basic research such as materials science and thermodynamics related to the fuel/core degradation during severe accident, and 2) development of application such as severe accident analysis and modeling.

From overseas, about twenty experts (US, France, Germany, Sweden, Korea, Russia, etc.) participated in the workshop. Within Japan, the participants came from wide fields such as companies (Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Toshiba Co., Nuclear Fuel Development Co. Ltd., Nuclear Development Co. and the other material companies), universities, and the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry. In total, about one hundred people participated in the workshop.

In the research and development towards the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), it is pointed out that experts in many fields inter-disciplinary exchange information on the fuel/core degradation during severe accident and accumulate the knowledge not only on the FDNPS decommissioning but also on the future nuclear safety research.

In this workshop, middle and young researchers in Japan and foreign countries presented the latest R&D results. Also the participants exchanged the opinions with the leading researchers in the field of degradation progression of nuclear fuels and cores. Thereby, the workshop contributed to stimulate the promotion of the research in this field.