Behavior of Tritium Release from a Stainless Vessel of the Mercury Target as a Spallation Neutron Source

A spallation neutron source using mercury has been operated since 2008 on J-PARC. In the mercury, radioactive nuclide including tritium have been produced. The target vessel made of stainless steel is required to be exchanged periodically. In this paper, we report tritium behavior observed in series of the first exchange work done in 2011. Analysis on the tritium release behavior from the stainless steel on the basis of a simple desorption models was also shown.