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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.
Tadashi Fujii, Yoshiyuki Kataoka, Michio Murase, Kenji Tominaga
Nuclear Technology | Volume 112 | Number 1 | October 1995 | Pages 122-131
Technical Paper | Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A15857
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A water-wall-type passive containment cooling system, which has an outer pool (O/P) outside the suppression pool (S/P), is one passive safety system for the next generation reactors. It utilizes the steel containment vessel wall as a heat transfer medium between the S/P and O/P. /Is a measure to improve heat removal capability, the authors propose introduction of a baffle plate. The baffle plate can mitigate thermal stratification and enlarge the high-temperature region in the S/P. In particular, a hybrid baffle plate utilizes the structure wall by setting up local flow holes and enhances the natural circulation in the S/P through these holes. To clarify the effects of the configurations of the flow holes, thermal-hydraulic behavior has been examined. 1. The circumferential temperature difference in the outside region of the baffle plate was <2°C even though the flow hole area fraction was 10%. 2. The efficiency of the hybrid baffle plate saturated when the flow hole area fraction was >20%. 3. The maximum efficiency was obtained when the ratio of the depth between the vent tube outlet and the lower flow holes to the height between the vent tube outlet and the upper flow holes was ∼0.7.