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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.
Masatoshi Nakagawa
Nuclear Technology | Volume 102 | Number 1 | April 1993 | Pages 81-89
Technical Paper | Mixed-Oxide Fuel / Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34804
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Validation of the ÉTOILE code through a comparison with experimental bundle/duct interaction (BDI) data is discussed. ÉTOILE is a newly developed three-dimensional finite element program that uses a new analytical method to predict distortions and mechanical behavior in wire-wrapped-type fuel-pin bundles during irradiation in liquid-metal fast breeder reactor cores. Comparisons between the ÉTOILE solutions and the experimental data for bundle stiffnesses and minimum pin-to-pin and pin-to-duct clearances under bundle compression suggest that BDI performance can be predicted reasonably well with a suitable choice of friction coefficient and initial spiral wire displacement. Application of the code in the analysis of the mechanical behavior of soft bundles with distributed wireless pins is also presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this design in reducing the interaction forces between a fuel-pin bundle and a duct wall under bundle compression. Agreement with the experimental data is fairly good for the reduction in bundle stiffness when the configuration is changed from the normal bundle to the soft bundle.
