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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.
Arántzazu Cuadra, José-Luis Gago, Francesc Reventós
Nuclear Technology | Volume 146 | Number 1 | April 2004 | Pages 41-48
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3485
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Culminating in the participation of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations/Nuclear Science Committee pressurized water reactor (PWR) main-steam-line-break (MSLB) benchmark, we present the analysis with RELAP/PARCS of a double-ended MSLB assumed to occur in the Ascó nuclear power plant (NPP). This Spanish NPP, a two-unit 1000-MW(electric) PWR plant of Westinghouse design, has been in normal operation since 1983. The utility uses the RELAP model developed by its analysts to study transients that occurred (or postulated), following its own procedures, giving response to operation-related issues, as well as serving licensing and training purposes. The model is well validated. The present study tests the RELAP/PARCS model of the Asco NPP and, in particular, tests the coupling between the neutronics and the thermal hydraulics; its focus is not licensing or validation.
