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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.
Jan-Li Wang, Jay F. Kunze
Nuclear Technology | Volume 85 | Number 3 | June 1989 | Pages 285-293
Technical Paper | Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A34250
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The RELAP5 thermal-hydraulic transient code has been applied to a reactor safety analysis of a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) to a reactor with thin fuel plates operating at highly subcooled conditions, ∼75°C below boiling temperatures at operating pressure, 25°C below boiling conditions at atmosphere pressure that occurs immediately following the LOCA. Depressurization is not the critical issue in this case, but plate boiling and reflooding and mixing of vapor and fluid streams are the critical aspects of the calculation. The analysis of the results shows the sensitivity of the calculation to the time periods of the steam “chugging” effects in the water channels between fuel plates. This MOD2 version is the first version with which we found consistency and realism in the results calculated for these very difficult transient conditions.
