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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.
K. Praveen, M. P. Rajiniganth, A. D. Arun, R. Ananthanarayanan, N. Malathi, P. Sahoo, N. Murali
Nuclear Technology | Volume 176 | Number 1 | October 2011 | Pages 127-137
Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12547
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We present an unconventional but high-performance differential pressure (DP) monitoring instrument constructed using a new class of sensor, i.e., a pulsating sensor developed in-house. This instrument of unique design is of industrial grade, and it is specially made for online monitoring of pressure in the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), located in Kalpakkam, India. It measures pressure in two different ranges - 0 to 25 mbars (0 to 2.5 kPa) and 0 to 60 mbars (0 to 6.0 kPa) - using two specially designed capacitance-based robust probes made of stainless steel (Type 304L). The performance of this innovative instrument using both probes was thoroughly investigated at ambient room temperature as well as at elevated temperatures (above 30°C to 60°C) in order to assess its suitability for reactor application. The precision, sensitivity, response time, and lowest detection limit of measurement using this pulsating DP monitoring instrument are <0.01 mbars (0.001 kPa), 423 Hz/mbar (4230 Hz/kPa), [approximately]5 s, and 0.07 mbars (0.007 kPa), respectively. The influence of temperature up to 60°C on the measured parameters was found to be insignificant. A calibration technique has been evaluated to calibrate these pressure sensors.
