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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.
Kenji Takeshita, Yoshio Nakano
Nuclear Technology | Volume 133 | Number 3 | March 2001 | Pages 338-345
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3178
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An adsorption process of iodine using Ag0-loaded adsorbents was studied for the removal of radioactive iodine in the process off-gas from a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. A mathematical model to predict a breakthrough curve of I2 on the adsorbent bed was proposed. This model consists of the mass balance equation of I2 in the adsorbent bed, the mass transfer equation of I2 through the boundary layer surrounding the adsorbent particle, the intraparticle diffusion equation of I2, and the kinetic equation for the gas-solid reaction between I2 and loaded Ag0. Two unknown parameters in the model, the intraparticle diffusivity De and the apparent rate constant for the gas-solid reaction kr were determined simultaneously from the adsorption data measured by a thermogravimetric analyzer. The breakthrough curves predicted by the model using these parameters were in good agreement with the experimental ones. The rate-controlling step was evaluated by the effectiveness factor calculated from the kr value and the concentration gradient of I2 in the adsorbent particles, which was estimated by the model. From these results, the adsorbent structure required to improve the process performance is discussed. The proposed model is available as a calculation tool to support the design of the adsorption process.
