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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.
Michael C. Baker, Riccardo Bonazza
Nuclear Technology | Volume 125 | Number 1 | January 1999 | Pages 40-51
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2931
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental apparatus for investigating the injection of nitrogen gas and water into the base of a steel tank containing molten tin has been developed. A first set of experiments based on only gas injection has been used to develop a diagnostic technique using continuous high-energy X rays and digital imaging to observe the mixing process and to measure local and average void fractions in the test section as a function of time and space. This unique application of real-time, high-energy, X-ray imaging has been used to generate two-dimensional mappings of the chordal-average void fraction with spatial resolution corresponding to a 0.43-mm2 cross-sectional area perpendicular to the X-ray path and time resolutions of <5 ms. Void fraction measurements with superficial gas injection velocities from 0.07 to 0.14 m/s into a 0.08-m-deep pool of 683 K molten tin indicate that the time and spatial average integral void fraction at these gas injection rates is relatively constant, in the range from 0.26 to 0.31. Similar injections into pools of 0.14- and 0.15-m depths have also exhibited relatively constant average integral void fractions in the range from 0.18 to 0.26. These values are in good agreement with past integral experimental measurements in mercury, Wood's metal, and molten steel.
