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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.
J. M. Robson, J. Kroon
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 1 | Number 1 | January 1981 | Pages 160-164
Technical Note | Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST81-A19923
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Measurements have been made of the thermal neutron fluxes at various distances from a point source of 14-MeV neutrons embedded in three large shields. The first shield consisted of a 24-m3 assembly of solid concrete building blocks of density 2.2 g/cm3 and gave an attenuation length of 14.1 ± 0.7 cm at a distance of 150 cm from the source. The second shield was a layered assembly of wood and concrete blocks with a mean density of 1.92 g/cm3 and gave an attenuation length of 15.7 ± 0.7 cm at the same distance. The third assembly consisted of a cube of side 61 cm of steel surrounded by concrete blocks; at a distance of 120 cm from the source it gave an attenuation length of 9.3 ± 0.4 cm.
