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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.
Wang Kee In, Dong Seok Oh, Tae Hyun Chun
Nuclear Technology | Volume 139 | Number 1 | July 2002 | Pages 72-79
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3305
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Empirical and computational pressure drop correlations were developed to accurately estimate the pressure drop at the fuel spacer grid in a pressurized water reactor. The empirical correlation uses the balance of hydraulic forces acting on the spacer grid. The amount of pressure drop is assumed to depend largely on the reduction of the flow cross section, the flow constriction in the spacer region, and the frictional loss. The grid form drag due to the relative plugging and the flow constriction by the grid components were found to be the primary factors of the total pressure drop. The computational correlation combines the pressure drop due to flow blockage by the spacer grid and the pressure drop calculated by dynamics analysis. The pressure loss coefficients from the empirical correlation agree well with the measured ones for the spacer grids with and without the mixing vane. The computational correlation overpredicts the pressure loss coefficients for the spacer grid with the mixing vane.