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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.
Gray S. Chang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 122 | Number 1 | April 1998 | Pages 43-51
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2849
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The United States and Russia expect to have a surplus of ~150 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium (WGP) and 1000 tonnes of weapons-grade uranium resulting from drastic reductions in nuclear weapons programs. One of the most favored candidate methods for disposing of the WGP is to blend it with natural or depleted uranium down to 5 to 7 wt% of WGP for light water reactor (LWR) fuel pellet fabrication. However, this approach, with a conversion ratio of 0.6, will produce more plutonium and other actinides in the spent fuel than the nonfertile fuel and the proposed actinide-reduced plutonium fuel (ARPF). This process only transforms the weapons-grade fissile materials to civilian-grade plutonium, which is still a nonproliferation concern, so it does not completely solve the plutonium disposition problem. Disposition of WGP in reactors without fertile material has been proposed by industry and national laboratories. A new ARPF is described that would use WGP mixed with medium-enrichment (20 at.% < 235U < 93 at.%) UO2 and the nonfertile material tungsten to achieve a conversion ratio <0.1. The ARPF can meet the WGP disposal goal while minimizing the plutonium production. Its physics and burnup characteristics are analyzed, and the results are compared with LWR UO2 and mixed-oxide fuel.
