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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.
Tunc Aldemir, Joseph W. Talnagi,*, Don W. Miller
Nuclear Technology | Volume 86 | Number 3 | September 1989 | Pages 248-263
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A34293
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The 10-kW, highly enriched uranium (HEU) fueled Ohio State University Research Reactor (OSURR) is being upgraded to operate at 500 kW under natural convection core cooling with the recently licenced lowenriched uranium (LEU), high-density U3Si2fuel. The OSURR will be the first university reactor to use standardized U3Si2 plates for a full-core conversion from HEU to LEU fuel. The activities toward conversion/power upgrade objectives include (a) a neutronic performance assessment of 15 LEU cores with 16 plate standard and 10 plate control elements under expected operating conditions; (b) simulation of OSURR threedimensional pool dynamics under various pool configurations to limit the pool top 16N activity (PTNA) to operationally allowable levels; (c) determination of a new correlation to predict onset of nucleate boiling (ONB) in thin, rectangular channels under low-velocity, upward flow conditions; and (d) design of a pool heat removal system (PHRS). These activities have identified three possible LEU cores with a cold, clean shutdown margin in the range from 1.57 to 1.91% Δk/k that allow steady-state operation at 500 kW with a 50 to 60% margin to ONB. A system configuration that minimizes PTNA while maximizing the primary inlet temperature to PHRS to improve the heat exchanger efficiency has also been identified. The PHRS is designed to remove 500 kW through an ethylene-glycol heat exchanger and a dry cooler when the outside air temperature is <33°C. The PHRS also has an auxiliary heat exchanger to allow operation without power derating when the air temperature is >33°C.
