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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.
Charles S. Olsen, Richard R. Hobbins, Beverly A. Cook
Nuclear Technology | Volume 87 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 884-896
Technical Paper | TMI-2: Decontamination and Waste Management / Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A27682
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Examinations of the core debris from the damaged Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) core were an important part of the overall understanding of the accident. Results from carefully designed in-pile and out-of-pile experiments were necessary for the evaluation of the core materials. In particular, results from the Power Burst Facility severe fuel damage tests conducted at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory and unirradiated fuel bundle tests and out-of-pile materials interaction experiments conducted at Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe in the Federal Republic of Germany have been used to help characterize the core materials from TMI-2. The application of the results of these experiments to the characterization of the core debris for the TMI-2 accident evaluation is described.
