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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.
Kenny C. Gross, Robert V. Strain
Nuclear Technology | Volume 98 | Number 1 | April 1992 | Pages 113-123
Technical Paper | Fast Reactor Safety / Nuclear Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT92-A34655
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A bifrequency reactivity oscillation procedure (ROP) was devised at the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) to be used as a diagnostic tool for characterizating mechanisms responsible for the release and transport of short-lived fission products from the surface of exposed fuel. A series of ROP experiments was conducted during operation at 74% of full power with a breached fuel pin in the core. Detailed analyses of the results using bivariate spectral decomposition and cross-correlation techniques are presented. Comparison of the results of these experiments with those obtained from earlier tests with an unclad fuel source provides conclusive evidence that all nonrecoil fission product release phenomena originate from mechanisms acting inside the breached element itself. Implications of the findings from this study in terms of the goals of high-sensitivity fission product surveillance are discussed.
