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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.
Amnon Katz, Adrian R. Brough, R. James Kirkpatrick, Leslie J. Struble, J. Francis Young
Nuclear Technology | Volume 129 | Number 2 | February 2000 | Pages 236-245
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3059
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A simulated low-level nuclear waste solution was studied for possible solidification in a cement-based matrix. The waste composition was based on an alkaline mixture of Na3(PO4)12H2O, NaNO2, Na2CO3 and Al(NO3)39H2O, and the binder composition was cement (21%), fly ash (68%), and attapulgite clay (11%). The materials were mixed at a high solution-to-binder ratio of 1.0 l/kg, and curing temperatures varied from 45 to 90°C. The effect of changes in solution concentration was studied. Solution concentration ranged from a dilution to 5.5% (designed to simulate a possible off-gas condensate obtained during vitrification of the waste) to the full concentration of the simulated waste. Compressive strength and early age heat development increased as the concentration was increased up to 67%, but at higher concentrations both compressive strength and heat development decreased. X-ray diffraction and 29Si and 27Al magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy pointed to a high degree of reaction of the fly ash in the mixes and formation of zeolites at the higher concentrations. Na-P1 zeolite formed in increasing quantities as the concentration was raised to 67%, but at the highest concentrations the zeolite formed was sodalite.
