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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.
Rajesh K. Ahluwalia, Thanh Q. Hua
Nuclear Technology | Volume 140 | Number 1 | October 2002 | Pages 41-50
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3322
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During anodic dissolution of irradiated binary Experimental Breeder Reactor-II fuel, a portion of the electrorefined uranium collects in the underlying cadmium pool. It is periodically recovered by setting up a cell configuration in which the pool is made the anode and uranium is electrodeposited on a solid cathode mandrel. A theoretical model is used to determine the current structure of the liquid cadmium anode. The model is validated by comparing against the measured composition of the cathode deposits. Multinodal simulations are conducted to explain the bell shape of deposits observed with this mode of electrotransport. The simulations also determine the dependence of collection efficiency on the electrical charge passed that is functionally consistent with the experimental data. Finally, a simplified operating map of the electrorefiner is presented that can be used to determine the conditions for growing cathode deposits of target composition.