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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.
Robert Jeraj, Tomaz Zagar, Matjaz Ravnik
Nuclear Technology | Volume 137 | Number 3 | March 2002 | Pages 169-180
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3266
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Monte Carlo calculations of a criticality experiment with burned fuel on the TRIGA Mark II research reactor are presented. The main objective was to incorporate burned fuel composition calculated with the WIMSD4 deterministic code into the MCNP4B Monte Carlo code and compare the calculated keff with the measurements. The criticality experiment was performed in 1998 at the "Jozef Stefan" Institute TRIGA Mark II reactor in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with the same fuel elements and loading pattern as in the TRIGA criticality benchmark experiment with fresh fuel performed in 1991. The only difference was that in 1998, the fuel elements had on average burnup of ~3%, corresponding to 1.3-MWd energy produced in the core in the period between 1991 and 1998. The fuel element burnup accumulated during 1991-1998 was calculated with the TRIGLAV in-house-developed fuel management two-dimensional multigroup diffusion code. The burned fuel isotopic composition was calculated with the WIMSD4 code and compared to the ORIGEN2 calculations. Extensive comparison of burned fuel material composition was performed for both codes for burnups up to 20% burned 235U, and the differences were evaluated in terms of reactivity. The WIMSD4 and ORIGEN2 results agreed well for all isotopes important in reactivity calculations, giving increased confidence in the WIMSD4 calculation of the burned fuel material composition. The keff calculated with the combined WIMSD4 and MCNP4B calculations showed good agreement with the experimental values. This shows that linking of WIMSD4 with MCNP4B for criticality calculations with burned fuel is feasible and gives reliable results.
