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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.
Gray S. Chang, John M. Ryskamp
Nuclear Technology | Volume 129 | Number 3 | March 2000 | Pages 326-337
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3065
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experiment containing weapons-grade mixed-oxide (WG-MOX) fuel has been designed and is being irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The ability to accurately predict fuel pin performance is an essential requirement for the MOX fuel test assembly design. Detailed radial fission power and temperature profile effects and fission gas release in the fuel pin are a function of the fuel pin's temperature, fission power, and fission product and actinide concentration profiles. In addition, the burnup-dependent profile analyses in irradiated fuel pins is important for fuel performance analysis to support the potential licensing of the MOX fuel made from WG-plutonium and depleted uranium for use in U.S. reactors.The MCNP Coupling With ORIGEN2 burnup calculation code (MCWO) can analyze the detailed burnup profiles of WG-MOX and reactor-grade mixed-oxide (RG-MOX) fuel pins. The validated code MCWO can provide the best-estimate neutronic characteristics of fuel burnup performance analysis. Applying this capability with a new minicell method allows calculation of detailed nuclide concentration and power distributions within the MOX pins as a function of burnup. This methodology was applied to MOX fuel in a commercial pressurized water reactor and in an experiment currently being irradiated in the ATR. The prediction of nuclide concentration profiles and power distributions in irradiated MOX pins via this new methodology can provide insights into MOX fuel performance.
