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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.
Gregory J. Van Tuyle, Peter Kroeger, Gregory C. Slovik, Bing C. Chan, Robert J. Kennett, Arnold L. Aronson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 91 | Number 2 | August 1990 | Pages 185-202
Technical Paper | Safety of Next Generation Power Reactor / Nuclear Saftey | doi.org/10.13182/NT90-A34427
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Three advanced design concepts, including two liquid-metal-cooled reactors (LMRs), the Power Reactor Inherently Safe Module (PRISM) and the Sodium Advanced Fast Reactor (SAFR), and a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) are discussed and compared. Each provides inherent or passive safety to improve system safety. The focus is on two primary objectives: reactor shutdown and shutdown heat removal. The LMR and HTGR concepts rely on inherent reactivity feedback to provide an inherent reactor response under a failure-to-scram condition; SAFR also provides a passive shutdown system using Curie point magnets (the self-actuated scram system). For shutdown heat removal, the LMR and HTGR designs rely on passive air cooling of the reactor vessel as the ultimate safety-grade system.
