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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.
O. A. Fedorchenko, I. A. Alekseev, S. D. Bondarenko, T. V. Vasyanina
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 3 | April 2017 | Pages 432-437
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2016.1273695
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new LPCE column (LPCE-3) of 2 m packing height and 50 mm inner diameter expands the experimental potential of “EVIO” pilot plant. Fresh RCTU-3SM catalyst of somewhat greater average percentage of Platinum and a little larger dimension of SDBC carrier has been tested in LPCE-3. Both hydraulic and isotope separation characteristics of LPCE-3 filled with alternating layers of the catalyst and packing in the volume ratio of 1:4 (the same packing and ratio which are used in LPCE-1 and LPCE-2 columns) have been studied. The experimental results are presented in comparison with ones received on LPCE-1 and LPCE-2 earlier. This paper aims to the problem of comparing different columns operated at dissimilar conditions and separating different isotopes. In the search for an invariant, which would unambiguously present performance of LPCE, it is experimentally shown that performance expressed by a 3-fluid model characteristic, Kc – mass-transfer coefficient for catalytic exchange (at fixed mass-transfer coefficient for phase exchange) is the same for different isotopes and different temperatures in contrast to the overall mass-transfer coefficient, Kya.
