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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.
Nicolas Depauw, Sylvain Danto, Bryan Bednarz, Harald Paganetti, Yoel Fink, Joao Seco
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 6-10
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 16th Biennial Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division / Radiation Biology; Radiation Used in Medicine | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12261
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Proton radiography imaging qualities have been studied using Monte Carlo simulations. A specific phantom, made of different common tissues, was implemented for simulations using the Massachusetts General Hospital treatment proton beam, pure 230- and 490-MeV proton beams, and a pure 100-keV X-ray beam. Along with spatial resolution, the signal-to-noise ratio and the contrast-to-noise ratio were specified and compared for each tissue type and geometry, using filtered radiographs taking into account only primary proton interactions, both primary and secondary proton interactions, and both contributions while performing angular and energetic cuts. This work particularly highlights the faculty for proton radiography to image both low- and high-density tissues. This could play an important role in diagnosing specific tumor types, such as lung cancer, for which conventional radiography operates poorly.