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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 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.
Jon M. Rodabaugh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 87 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 1117-1121
Late Paper | TMI-2: Decontamination and Waste Management / Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A27703
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
When the Three Mile Island Unit 2 core failed, molten core material melted through the peripheral region of the core support structure and flowed outside the normal confines of the core region into a normally inaccessible area behind the baffle plates. This molten core material flowed completely around the circumference of the core region and down into the lower head of the reactor vessel. As a result of this material relocation, a significant portion of the core support assembly must be disassembled to recover this material.
