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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.
Kyoung-Ho Kang, Hyun-Sik Park, Seok Cho, Nam-Hyun Choi, In-Cheol Chu, Byong-Jo Yun, Kyung-Doo Kim, Yeon-Sik Kim, Won-Pil Baek, Ki-Yong Choi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 177 | Number 3 | March 2012 | Pages 382-394
Technical Paper | Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13482
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A postulated steam generator tube rupture (SGTR) event of the APR1400 (Advanced Power Reactor 1400 MWe) was experimentally investigated with the thermal-hydraulic integral effect test facility ATLAS (Advanced Thermal-Hydraulic Test Loop for Accident Simulation). The SGTR accident is one of the design-basis accidents having a significant impact on safety from the viewpoint of radiological release. To simulate a SGTR accident of the APR1400, the SGTR-HL-04 and the SGTR-HL-05 tests were performed by simulating double-ended ruptures of a single U-tube and five U-tubes at the hot side of the ATLAS steam generator. Following the reactor trip induced by a high steam generator level signal, the primary-system pressure decreased and the secondary-system pressure increased until the main steam safety valves were opened to reduce the secondary-system pressure. A mild change of the water level in the core was observed, which was attributed to the small break sizes of the present tests compared with conventional loss-of-coolant-accident tests. No excursion in the cladding temperature was observed in either test. The break area affected the timing of the major events observed in the tests. Lessened heat transfer to the secondary side caused by earlier actuation of the safety injection pumps had more influence on the secondary pressure of the affected steam generator than the break flow. The break flow was discharged as single-phase water in both tests.