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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.
Dale J. Merchant
Nuclear Technology | Volume 87 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 1099-1105
Late Paper | TMI-2: Decontamination and Waste Management / Nuclear Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A27700
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
External and internal radiation exposures to workers involved in the Three Mile Island Unit 2 recovery effort are reviewed. The 1979 accident left the plant with several areas with radiation environments that would not allow personnel entries for more than a few minutes without reaching the federal radiation limits. The recovery necessitated many unique tasks never before attempted in the U.S. commercial nuclear industry. Total commitment to the as-low-as-reasonablyachievable principle has helped keep individual and collective exposures acceptably low while allowing the recovery to proceed expeditiously. Since the initial worker actions to stabilize the plant and assess accident damage during 1979, there have been no individual exposures to radiation in excess of regulatory limits. Every individual annual dose since 1980 has been <0.04 Sv (4 rem), and the average annual worker dose has been comparable with the U.S. industry average. The annual collective exposures have been increasing since the initial plant stabilization. The relatively low collective doses from 1980 to 1983 reflect the technical planning and engineering phase of the recovery while conducting initial decontamination and dose reduction measures. Preliminary reactor vessel preparations and actual defueling commenced in 1984 and 1985. The collective doses in 1986 and 1987 correspond to the full-scale defueling and decontamination activities. The actual cumulative occupational dose through August 1988 was ∼53 person-Sv (5300 person-rem), and it is anticipated that <70 person-Sv (7000 personrem) will have been expended for the recovery. These collective doses are within the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s original estimate of 30 to 80 person-Sv (3000 to 8000 person-rem) and compare to the average collective dose for commercial nuclear power plants in the United States over the same time period.