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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.
Martin G. Plys
Nuclear Technology | Volume 101 | Number 3 | March 1993 | Pages 400-410
Technical Paper | Severe Accident Technology / Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34796
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Hydrogen production and combustion during hypothetical severe nuclear reactor accidents are discussed from the perspective of integral predictive assessment of such accidents. Unmitigated hydrogen production after prolonged core dryout has the adverse impacts of accelerating the degradation of core geometry, reducing heat transfer area, and impeding the in-vessel recovery of an accident. Unmitigated hydrogen combustion can, in certain circumstances, lead to containment failure, or it could damage equipment and thereby impede recovery. The phenomena of in-vessel hydrogen generation and combustion are summarized, including recent experiments, and selected models for integral predictive assessment of these phenomena are described. Adequacies and shortcomings of models and the experimental data base are identified, and the effects of mitigation are discussed.