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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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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February 2025
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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.
Technical Session|Panel|Panel Sessions|Water-Cooled Reactor Operations and Accident Analysis
Monday, August 21, 2023|3:30–5:10PM EDT|Columbia 5-8
Session Chair:
Baris Sarikaya
Alternate Chair:
Stephen M. Bajorek
Session Organizer:
LWR fleet capacity factor and reliability have improved significantly over the last decades. However, to keep up with the changing economic pressures and with desire to further improve plant safety and operation, LWR fleet is looking into new innovative solutions to further improve its economics as well as overall safety of the plants. Operational experience gained in recent decades and improvements in the computational infrastructure is in the middle of this effort. That said, these opportunities and initiatives present a number of significant challenges as well as unique opportunities in tackling these challenges. This panel focuses on two key examples, fuel fragmentation relocation and dispersion (FFRD) and time at temperature (t@T) concepts presented by key technical experts from the LWR industry.
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