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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.
Harn Chyi Lim, Karin Rudman, Kapil Krishnan, Robert McDonald, Patricia Dickerson, Darrin Byler, Pedro Peralta, Chris Stanek, Kenneth McClellan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 182 | Number 2 | May 2013 | Pages 155-163
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the Symposium on Radiation Effects in Ceramic Oxide and Novel LWR Fuels / Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A16427
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Transport of fission products (FPs) inside fuel pellets is an important mechanism that affects microstructure evolution as well as fuel performance. To study this phenomenon for low fuel burnups, when solid-state diffusion is likely to be the controlling mechanism that sets the stage for subsequent phenomena, e.g., fission gas bubble formation and linkage, we created a three-dimensional (3-D) finite element model based on the real microstructure of a depleted UO2 sample. The model couples grain bulk, grain boundary (GB), and triple junction (TJ) diffusion by using 3-D elements for grain bulks, two-dimensional elements for GBs, and one-dimensional elements for TJs. Grain boundary percolation theory is applied in one case study, and the result shows that the presence of high-diffusivity TJs reduces the effect of GB percolation. The model is also used with mass generation from grain bulks, and it is found that localized regions with a high concentration of FPs can form in the presence of a dominant GB percolation path. The work introduces an approach to model diffusion through GBs and TJs at a fair computational cost that can be applied to study the effects of microstructure on FP transport.
