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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.
W. Breitung, R. Redlinger
Nuclear Technology | Volume 111 | Number 3 | September 1995 | Pages 420-425
Technical Paper | A New Light Water Reactor Safety Concept Special / Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A15870
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The response of structures to different pressure histories from hydrogen combustion is analyzed using the model of a linear undamped oscillator. The effective static pressures from a slow deflagration, a fast turbulent flame, a deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) and a stable detonation are calculated as functions of oscillator frequency. The response of components with a low natural frequency, such as the outermost shell in a large dry containment, is governed by the long-term pressure after combustion. Detonation peak pressure and impulse are not important. For structures with low frequencies, fast flames have a damage potential very similar to detonations. For the investigated pressure loads, the normally reflected detonation provides the bounding effective static pressure for oscillators up to 500 Hz. Fully confined DDT events can exceed the detonation load near the transition location for structural frequencies above ∼40 Hz.
