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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.
Thomas K. S. Liang, Richard R. Schultz
Nuclear Technology | Volume 133 | Number 3 | March 2001 | Pages 355-358
Technical Note | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3180
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In light water reactors, particularly the pressurized water reactors, the severity of loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs) will limit how high the reactor power can extend. Although the best-estimate LOCA methodology can provide the greatest margin on the peak cladding temperature (PCT) evaluation during LOCA, it will take many more resources to develop and to get final approval from the licensing authority. Instead, implementation of evaluation models required by Appendix K of the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 10, Part 50 (10 CFR 50), upon an advanced thermal-hydraulic platform can also gain significant margin on the PCT calculation. A program to modify RELAP5-3D in accordance with Appendix K of 10 CFR 50 was launched by the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Taiwan, and it consists of six sequential phases of work. The compliance of the current RELAP5-3D with Appendix K of 10 CFR 50 has been evaluated, and it was found that there are 11 areas where the code modifications are required to satisfy the requirements set forth in Appendix K of 10 CFR 50. To verify and assess the development of the Appendix K version of RELAP5-3D, nine kinds of separate-effect experiments and six sets of integral-effect experiments will be adopted. Through the assessments program, all the model changes will be verified.