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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.
Hiroshi Sekimoto, Zaki Su’ud
Nuclear Technology | Volume 109 | Number 3 | March 1995 | Pages 307-313
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT109-307
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual design study of small long-life nuclear power reactors used for a remote or isolated area has been performed. Lead as well as lead-bismuth is employed as the coolant, and both metallic and nitride fuels are investigated. There are some severe requirements on these reactors for operability, maintainability, safety, and proliferation resistance. Some important characteristics of the proposed designs [150 MW(thermal)] are the following: transportability between reactor factory and operation site; capability of long-life operation (12 yr) without refueling or fuel shuffling while maintaining burnup reactivity swing less than 0.1% Δk; negative total core coolant void coefficient of reactivity over all the burnup period; omission of intermediate heat exchanger; and a relatively large contribution of natural circulation.
