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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.
Pran K. Paul, Michael V. Gregory, Tunc Aldemir
Nuclear Technology | Volume 137 | Number 2 | February 2002 | Pages 147-162
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3264
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A dynamic optimization scheme has been developed to generate high-level-waste (HLW) blending sequences that optimize waste-processing parameters such as raw waste volume processed in a batch, waste-processing time, or waste-processing cost. The optimization algorithm takes advantage of the linear algebraic equation formulation and the continuous-discrete event mapping algorithms used in the Production Planning Model (ProdMod) simulator development. The FORTRAN-based optimizer is interfaced with the SPEEDUP-based dynamic process simulator ProdMod. The optimization scheme has been successfully implemented to maximize the amount of raw waste volume processed in a batch for one of the salt-processing options at the Savannah River Site HLW complex. Parametric studies demonstrate that this optimization scheme provides a realistic approach for guiding the operation of HLW complexes. The optimization scheme is applicable to other sites in the nuclear waste complex (e.g., Hanford) and also for process industries where the dynamics are simulated using Aspen Technology's SPEEDUP software development package.
