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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.
Kazuichiro Hashimoto, Gunji Nishio, Kunihisa Soda
Nuclear Technology | Volume 101 | Number 2 | February 1993 | Pages 218-226
Technical Paper | Enrichment and Reprocessing System | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34783
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A solvent fire in the extraction process of a fuel reprocessing plant is postulated. Because of the high concentration of fission products and large amount of nuclear fuel materials in the extraction process, it is necessary to demonstrate that these radioactive materials can be confined by the air ventilation system during a solvent fire. Large-scale tests are performed in a fire/filter facility to evaluate the effectiveness of a ventilation system including high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters to confine radioactive materials. It is demonstrated that the integrity of the filters in the ventilation system can be maintained, and the decontamination factor of HEPA filters for smoke particles, which might contain radioactive materials, is sufficiently high during a postulated solvent fire.
