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The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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.
Alvin Radkowsky, Alex Galperin
Nuclear Technology | Volume 124 | Number 3 | December 1998 | Pages 215-222
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2921
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The nonproliferative light water thorium technology, also known as RTF (Radkowsky thorium fuel), provides a new approach to light water reactor core design. An RTF core is completely nonproliferative for all practical purposes, provides major reductions in radwaste, reduces fuel cycle cost and consumption of natural uranium, does not require soluble boron control during operation, and is once-through (i.e., does not require reprocessing). The core is made up of multiple seed-blanket units with uranium-zirconium alloy in the seed regions and thorium oxide with ~10% uranium oxide in the blanket regions. A key advantage is that an RTF core has exactly the same control drives and support plates. An RTF core with plutonium substituted for uranium is also optimum for incinerating either weapons- or reactor-grade plutonium, burning at three times the rate obtainable with mixed oxide (MOX). Use of MOX also requires considerable core modifications and produces 60% new plutonium, while RTF core produces none.