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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.
Wen-Shan Lin, Bau-Shei Pei, Chien-Hsiung Lee, I. A. Mudawwar
Nuclear Technology | Volume 85 | Number 2 | May 1989 | Pages 213-226
Technical Paper | Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A34242
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A theoretical critical heat flux (CHF) model based on microlayer dryout and Helmholtz instability for subcooled tube flow under pressurized water reactor operation conditions is first extended to the conditions of saturated low-quality flow. Then the applicability of this extended theoretical CHF model to rod bundles is evaluated. The effects of grid spacers, cold wall, and axial heat flux nonuniformity on bundle CHFs are investigated. The extended CHF model is very accurate when compared with three other well-known CHF correlations on a data base of round tube CHF. In the simple case with uniform axial heat flux distribution, simple grid spacers, and no guide tubes in bundles, the theoretical CHF model gives good results. In other more complex cases, the cold-wall effects due to the existence of guide tubes, the effects of mixing vane grids, and the effects of nonuniform axial heat flux distributions on CHF are significant. The present model generally gives satisfactory results when compared with ∼1400 bundle CHF experimental data points although corrections for grid spacers, cold wall, and axial heat flux have not yet been considered.
