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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.
Rae-Joon Park, Sang-Baik Kim, Hee-Dong Kim, Sang-Min Choi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 127 | Number 1 | July 1999 | Pages 66-80
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2984
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental study has been performed on natural convection heat transfer with and without crust formation in a molten metal pool. Two types of steady-state tests, natural and forced convection coolings of the molten metal pool, were performed in low- and high-aspect-ratio cases. When the natural convection flow is developed in the molten metal pool, the overlying coolant conditions do not affect the crust formation. On the other hand, when the natural convection flow is not developed, the coolant conditions affect the crust formation. The heat transfer rate of cases with crust formation is lower than that of cases without crust formation due to the effect of the crust serving as a thermal barrier. The present experimental results on the relationship between the Nusselt number and Rayleigh number match better with Globe and Dropkin's correlation than any others. With an increase in the crust thickness, the Nusselt number in the metal pool does not rapidly decrease in spite of a rapid decrease in Rayleigh number because the aspect ratio of the metal pool decreases. A new correlation between the Nusselt number and Rayleigh number in the molten metal pool with crust formation has been developed as Nu = 0.0923 (Ra)0.302 (2 × 104 < Ra < 2 × 107).
