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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.
Alberto Talamo, Yousry Gohar, H. Kiyavitskaya, V. Bournos, Y. Fokov, C. Routkovskaya
Nuclear Technology | Volume 184 | Number 2 | November 2013 | Pages 131-147
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A22310
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study compares Monte Carlo and deterministic neutronics analyses of the zero-power YALINA Thermal subcritical assembly, which is located in Minsk, Belarus. The YALINA Thermal facility consists of a subcritical core that can be driven by either a californium neutron source or a deuterium-deuterium (D-D) neutron source. The californium neutron source is generated by the natural decay of 252Cf; the D-D neutron source is generated by a deuteron accelerator. The MCNPX, MONK, NJOY, DRAGON, PARTISN, and TORT computer programs have been used for calculating the neutron spectrum, the neutron flux, and the 3He(n,p) reaction rate set by californium and D-D neutron sources. These parameters have been computed in different experimental channels of the assembly for different fuel loading configurations. The MCNPX and MONK computer programs modeled the facility without any major approximation; the PARTISN and TORT computer simulations used 69 energy groups, S16 angular quadrature set, linear anisotropic scattering, and approximately 60 homogenized material zones. The results calculated by different computer programs are in good agreement; in addition, they match the 3He(n,p) reaction rate from experimental measurements obtained by californium and D-D neutron sources.
