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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.
Hungyuan B. Liu, Robert M. Brugger
Nuclear Technology | Volume 108 | Number 2 | November 1994 | Pages 151-156
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT94-A35026
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Convenient, economical epithermal neutron beams will be needed in the future for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). We studied two concepts for producing epithermal neutron beams with low-power reactors. The first design is a 100-kW reactor with a 235U fission plate placed outside the reflector region, plus an Al/Al2O3 moderator assembly. The beam, which is directed forward, delivers a flux of epithermal neutrons of 0.8 × 109 n/cm2·s and a fast neutron dose of 4.4 × 10−11 cGy·cm2/nepi. The second design is based on a slab reactor plus a similar Al/Al2O3 moderator assembly. With an operating power of 50 kW, the beam has an intensity of 1.4 × 109 n/cm2.s and a fast neutron dose of 4.6 × 10−11 cGy·cm2/nepi; this beam also is directed forward. These epithermal neutron beams should be acceptable for BNCT; a treatment could be completed in ∼1 h, and the fast neutron dose to the skin would not be the limiting dose. Such small reactors should be practicable in a hospital location.
