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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.
Sadayuki Izutsu, Yoshiro Kudo, Junichi Onuma, Tomohiko Iwasaki, Sakae Muto, Akio Toba
Nuclear Technology | Volume 89 | Number 1 | January 1990 | Pages 92-102
Technical Paper | Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT90-A34361
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Rod drop accidents (RDAs) were calculated for a typical 1100-MW(electric) boiling water reactor (BWR) using the three-dimensional core dynamics simulation code ARIES. Calculated cases are for cold start-up and hot standby cores. In both cold start-up and hot standby core RDAs, the moderator density reactivity feedback has an important effect on suppressing fuel enthalpy increase. Hot standby core RDAs, in particular, show remarkable effects of the moderator density reactivity feedback on reducing the power peak and succeeding fuel enthalpy rise. Sensitivity analyses of the effects of initial power level, core inlet subcooling, rod drop speed, dropping rod worth, etc., have been carried out under both cold start-up and hot standby core conditions for a typical 1100-MW(electric) BWR. In the hot standby core RDAs, the parameters affecting neutronic conditions (such as Doppler feedback) and moderator density proved to be very sensitive. In the cold start-up core RDAs, the parameters affecting moderator density are not so sensitive, but the parameters affecting Doppler feedback or neutronic conditions proved to be more sensitive than in the hot standby core RDAs.