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The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.
R.R. Peterson, G.A. Moses, R.L. Engelstad, D.L. Henderson, G.L. Kulcinski, E.G. Lovell, M.E. Sawan, I.N. Sviatoslavsky, J.J. Watrous, R.E. Olson, D.L. Cook
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 1895-1900
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40038
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Light Ion Fusion Target Development Facility (TDF) is expected to test approximately ten targets per day having yields in the 50 to 800 MJ range. This large number of high yield micro-explosions creates design problems in the TDF that are not present in PBFA-I and PBFA-II. The TDF would be the first light ion facility where radioactivity in the target debris and induced in the facility itself constitute a biological hazard. It must have a first wall and a target diagnostics package that can survive repeated mechanical and thermal pulses from the target microexplosions. In addition, the repetition rate is much higher than for present day light ion beam drivers. A preliminary conceptual design for the TDF including a reaction chamber, biological shield, target diagnostics package and driver that addresses these and other problems is presented.
