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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
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.
NUCLEAR AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR SPACE (NETS-2024) PLENARY SPEAKER
Randy Bell is a senior project leader at The Aerospace Corporation working in space nuclear power and propulsion. Prior to Aerospace, he served in DOE and NNSA in nuclear engineering and nuclear nonproliferation from 1991 through 2020, during this time he led research programs developing technical methods to detect and characterize weapons proliferation. Mr. Bell was the manager of Space and Remote Sensing Systems where he oversaw several small satellite programs and many advanced airborne remote sensing efforts. He headed NNSA’s Office of Nuclear Detonation Detection where he was responsible for production of operational satellite payloads as well as seismic and atmospheric detonation detection technology. Subsequently he was the Director of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty’s International Data Centre where he led operation of the multinational nuclear test detection system and coordinated nuclear test monitoring activities among all Treaty member countries. Before DOE, Mr Bell was a US Navy Fast Attack Submarine Officer and continued in the reserves in numerous assignments related to national space systems. He has master’s degrees in physics from George Mason University, and computer science from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Rochester.
Last modified April 16, 2024, 8:46am MDT
