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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.
Luis Rebollo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 103 | Number 1 | July 1993 | Pages 122-130
Technical Note | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34835
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A best-estimate methodology for analysis of an anticipated transient without scram (ATWS) in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) is applied to the simulation of the passive response to postulated ATWS scenarios of the José Cabrera (Zorita) nuclear power plant (NPP) owned and operated by Union Fenosa, which is the only Westinghouse PWR with a single coolant loop. A justification of the calculation hypotheses is included. The results of the specific studies are evaluated, and the conclusion is that the intrinsic safety margins of the original design of the plant guarantees the integrity of the fuel, primary circuit, and containment, without the need to incorporate an automatic ATWS mitigation system. Finally, a suitable plant-specific prototype emergency operating procedure is designed that is substantially different from the previous Zorita NPP procedure and from the generic procedure applicable to multiloop plants. This procedure is validated by simulating the operator-plant interface by means of a validation matrix including the scenarios presenting the most adverse dynamic modes foreseeable.
