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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.
W. H. Amarasooriya, Hongfei Yan, Umesh Ratnam,†, Theo G. Theofanous
Nuclear Technology | Volume 101 | Number 3 | March 1993 | Pages 354-384
Technical Paper | Severe Accident Technology / Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34794
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This is the third part of a three-part series of papers addressing the probability of liner failure in a Mark-I containment. The purpose is to quantify the corium/concrete interactions and liner attack phenomena in a form suitable for use in the probabilistic framework as discussed in the first part of this series. In the quantifications of corium/concrete interactions, the principal parameter of interest is the melt superheat transient, especially as it is affected by the oxidation of the metallic components in the melt. A computer code specifically developed for this purpose is also described and compared with available experimental data. In the quantification of the liner attack phenomena, the principal parameters are melt-to-liner heat transfer coefficient and liner failure criteria. The assessment of the heat transfer coefficient is based on experiments that simulate the melt-to-liner contact (recirculating) flow regime, which were specifically run for this purpose. The consideration of liner failure criteria includes finite element analyses addressing the potential for structural failure (due to loss of strength in high-temperature steel) in addition to straightforward failure by melting. The two-dimensional and transient aspects of the heat transfer problem, including solid-liquid phase change at the melt-liner interface, are shown to be important, and the quantification is carried out by means of an analysis tool specifically developed for this purpose.