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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.
Soon Sam Kim, Jerry L. Judd
Nuclear Technology | Volume 110 | Number 1 | April 1995 | Pages 71-85
Fission Reactor | Burnup Credit | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A35097
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fission rate monitor measurements and startup testing data recorded during operation of the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) have been used to validate a three-dimensional PDQ full-core model developed for the physics analysis to support an updated final safety analysis report. The three-dimensional analysis utilizes the flux synthesis technique as well as the explicit method in solving for the spatial flux distribution in the core. Measured data used for comparison are specific powers from a string offission rate monitors, located in water channels of individual fuel elements, as well as the lobe and fuel element powers. Good agreement was observed in the specific power comparison. For the overall pointwise data, the mean errors were within 1.6% with a standard deviation of ±9%. An excellent agreement was observed for the fuel element power except for a few fuel positions in the corner lobes. Measured ATR startup testing data are also compared with the PDQ calculated values. The PDQ calculated parameters were conservative with respect to measured data. The validation study provided valuable data for assessment of the three-dimensional analytical model and techniques to be employed in the ATR physics analysis. The study also indicated that the PDQ three-dimensional flux synthesis solution technique is an economical and reasonably accurate method for determining global and local three-dimensional power distributions in the core.
