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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.
Jing Zhao, Yongwei Yang, Sicong Xiao, Zhiwei Zhou
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 3 | September 2013 | Pages 521-524
Fusion Technologies: Heating and Fueling | Proceedings of the Twentieth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE-2012) (Part 2) Nashville, Tennessee, August 27-31, 2012 | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A19145
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Progress on the fusion-fission hybrid reactor (FFHR) brings fusion a viable energy source in foreseeable future. Energy multiplication in a FFHR makes a much easier prerequisite for the fusion reaction than a fusion reactor. The molten salt reactor has advantages on heat transfer and post-processing of the spent fuels. A fission blanket made of molten salt was studied for the FFHR. The molten salt consists of F-Li-Be, with nuclear fuels dissolved in it. When thorium-uranium-plutonium fuels were added into a F-Li-Be molten salt zone with a component of 71% LiF -2% BeF2 -13.5% ThF4 -8.5% UF4 -5% PuF3, the appropriate blanket energy multiplication factor and TBR can be obtained. Two different molten salt models (Single molten salt zone model and multi molten salt zone model) were designed and compared in this study. The changes in blanket multiplication factor, M, and the tritium breeding ratio, TBR, during burnup life are investigated. The burnup analysis of the molten salt blanket was carried out by the COUPLE2 code. Through the burnup analysis, the breeding of the fissile fuel 233U and the transmutation of the minor actinides were also studied.
