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Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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Latest News
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.
C. B. Reed, B. F. Picologlou, P. V. Dauzvardis
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 257-263
Blanket and First-Wall Engineering | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40054
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The capabilities of a facility, brought into service to collect data on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effects pertinent to liquid-metal-cooled fusion reactor blankets, are presented. The facility, designed to extend significantly the existing data base on liquid metal MHD, employs eutectic NaK as the working fluid in a room-temperature closed loop. The instrumentation system is capable of collecting detailed data on pressure, voltage, and velocity distributions at any axial position within the bore of a 2 Tesla conventional electromagnet. The axial distribution of the magnetic field can be uniform or varying with either rapid or slow spatial variations. The magnet gap dimensions, for the uniform field of 2T, are 15.3 cm high × 0.76 m wide × 1.83 m long. NaK was circulated in December 1984 and the magnet was energized in March 1985. Shakedown tests in a round pipe test section are currently underway.
