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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.
Deokjung Lee
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 174 | Number 3 | July 2013 | Pages 300-317
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE12-27
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The impact of the dynamic condensation of energy groups on the convergence characteristics of the coarse mesh finite difference (CMFD) algorithm has been analyzed within the framework of two-group (2-G) one-node (1-N) local kernel (CMFD1N) and one-group or 2-G global CMFD formulations. Three algorithms were analyzed by the method of linearizing the nonlinear algorithms and applying Fourier analysis to the linearized algorithms: partial current sweep (PCS), CMFD1N, and CMFD1N with dynamic condensation (CMFD1N-DC). Because of the dynamic condensation, the spectral radius of the CMFD1N-DC algorithm is influenced by the other two algorithms; i.e., it shows a similar behavior to the PCS algorithm for small mesh sizes and a similar behavior to the CMFD1N algorithm for large mesh sizes. From the theoretical derivation, it was shown that the spectral radius is determined by the combination of partial current spectrum update in the local PCS kernel and the current correction factor update in the global CMFD. Specifically, the convergence properties of the CMFD1N-DC algorithm follow those of the PCS algorithm for small mesh sizes since the energy spectrum is only updated in the local kernel. It was also observed that the relaxation parameter for the CMFD1N-DC algorithm needs to be determined with the fast group cross-section data because of the dynamic condensation.
