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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.
M. Kelm, E. Bohnert
Nuclear Technology | Volume 129 | Number 1 | January 2000 | Pages 123-130
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3051
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The radiation chemical reactions in gamma-irradiated 2 to 5.3 mol/l NaCl solutions were mathematically modeled by elementary reactions proceeding in parallel. The calculations showed that if all radiolytic gases could escape from the solution, only three final compounds would be formed proportional to the dose and independent from the dose rate: H2, O2, and chlorate. All other products and intermediates reached a steady-state concentration after ~1 kGy. Within certain limits, the yields of final radiolytic products were determined solely by the primary G values of H2 and H2O2. The results of the corresponding irradiation experiments carried out in glass ampoules up to ~1 MGy were in good agreement with the calculations. The simulation of the radiolysis under the condition that all gaseous products remain dissolved in the solution showed a nearly constant formation rate for hydrogen and oxygen. As opposed to this, the experiments conducted in autoclaves resulted in nearly steady-state conditions for the gases at some 100 kGy at a pressure of ~35 bars. For chlorate, the experiments and the calculation gave a constant concentration of a few micromoles per litre in 5.3 mol/l NaCl solution. A better correspondence between experiments and the simulation was achieved for the gases when the reaction model was extended for interaction of corrosion products from the autoclaves.