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The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Dr. Michaele (Mikey) Brady Raap has been an active member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) since 1985. In that time, she has held many ANS leadership positions, including the chairmanship of the Reactor Physics and the Nuclear Criticality Safety Divisions, and serving on the Special Committee on Government Relations, and the Operations and Power Division.
She has more than 25 years of experience in nuclear and criticality safety for plutonium processing and spent fuel systems, including the design and review of benchmark experiments, safety assessments at operating facilities, and integrating safety-in-design.
Dr. Brady Raap has had extensive involvement with international and U.S. nuclear organizations. She is the Chair of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Nuclear Energy Agency, and the Expert Group on Burnup Credit Criticality, an active member of multiple industry standards development groups for the American National Standards Institute/American Nuclear Society, and the International Standards Organization. Currently, she serves as chairman of the OECD/NEA Working Party on Nuclear Criticality Safety and is a member of the Department of Energy Nuclear Criticality Safety Support Group
Prior to joining Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 1999, she was with Duke Engineering Services Incorporated, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. She performed her dissertation research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and received her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Dr. Brady Raap received a Special Recognition Award in 2011 involving Fukushima Media for her service during the accident.
Read Nuclear News from July 2014 for more on Dr. Brady Raap.
Last modified November 7, 2018, 2:05pm CST
