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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.
Theodore H. Bauer, Arthur E. Wright, William R. Robinson, John W. Holland, Edgar A. Rhodes
Nuclear Technology | Volume 92 | Number 3 | December 1990 | Pages 325-352
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT92-325
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Results and analyses of margin to cladding failure and prefailure axial expansion of metallic fuel are reported for Transient Reactor Test Facility in-pile transient overpower tests M2 through M7. These include the first such tests on binary and ternary alloy fuel of the Integral Fast Reactor concept and fuel burnups to 10 at. %. The fuel was tested at full coolant flow and subjected to an exponential power rise on an 8-s period until either incipient or actual cladding failure was achieved. Objectives, designs, and methods are described with emphasis on developments unique to metal fuel safety testing. Test results include the following: (a) temperature, flow, and pressure data; (b) fuel motion diagnostic data from the fast neutron hodoscope; and (c) test remains described by both destructive and nondestructive posttest examination. The resulting M-series data base for cladding failure threshold and prefailure fuel expansion is presented. The nature of the observed cladding failure and resultant fuel dispersals is described. Simple models of cladding failures and prefailure axial expansions are presented and compared with experimental results.