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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.
T. Sampat Sridhar, Ahmad G. Solomah
Nuclear Technology | Volume 85 | Number 1 | April 1989 | Pages 89-97
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A34230
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A process has been developed to immobilize the uranium-rich high-level radioactive waste generated from the reprocessing of CANDU spent fuel using the amine process. The calcination technology developed in the Process Development Section at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment has been used to demonstrate this process. Simulated liquid waste and SYN-ROC additives were denitrated thermochemically in a continuous operation using the Whiteshell Roto-Spray Calciner. Technically dense (≥95% theoretical density) samples of SYNROC-FA crystalline ceramic waste form containing ∼50 wt% simulated amine process waste were prepared by pressureless sintering at 1250°C under reducing atmosphere (N2-5 vol% H2) conditions. X-ray diffraction and grain microanalyses using an electron probe microanalyzer and an energy dispersive X-ray analyzer revealed the existence of a pyrochlore-structured phase CaU(Ti3+, Ti4+)2O7, perovskite (Ca,U)(Ti3+,Ti4+)O3, barium-hollandite Ba1.14(Al3+, Ti3+)2.27Ti5.71O16, and uraninite (U,Ca,Ti)O2. Leach tests (modified MCC-1) carried out in a simulated Canadian shield groundwater at 90°C for 120 days revealed that barium was the only ion released into the leachants, with an initial leach rate of 2x 10-1 g · m-2. day-1 measured after a 3-day period. The leach rate dropped to 6 x 10-3 g.m-2.day-1 after 120 days of leaching. The concentrations of uranium and other simulated fission products in the leachants were below the detection limits of inductively coupled plasma spectrometry and atomic absorption techniques. The leach rates of uranium and titanium were estimated to be <6 x 10-5 and 3 x 10-5 g·m-2.day-1, respectively.