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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.
Jean Tommasi, Marc Delpech, Jean-Paul Grouiller, Alain Zaetta
Nuclear Technology | Volume 111 | Number 1 | July 1995 | Pages 133-148
Technical Paper | Enrichment and Reprocessing System | doi.org/10.13182/NT111-133
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recycling minor actinides brings about several adverse effects. In response to the effects on cycle operations (fabrication, reprocessing, transportation) due to decay heat and to alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron activities, neptunium brings no significant ill effect, while americium calls for enhanced protection; the large amount of curium activity makes any recycling of this element extremely difficult. In so-called homogeneous recycling (minor actinides mixed with the fuel), the worsening of safety parameters such as coolant void or Doppler effect sets stringent limitations on the minor actinide content: ≈1% in pressurized water reactors and ≈2.5% in large fast reactors. The heterogeneous recycling, i.e., placing the minor actinides in a few special subassemblies at core periphery, brings about lesser penalties and allows higher contents. In any case, fast reactors are better suited to minor actinide transmutation than light water reactors. Fission products are very difficult to transmute efficiently, even in fast reactors. Such fission products should require the use of hybrid systems for their elimination. Finally, a nuclear park is built up in which the plutonium + minor actinide production of light water reactors is consumed in advanced fast reactors. The amount of electrical power generated by these fast reactors is ≈20%. The radiotoxicity reduction achievable can be of a factor 50 with a 1% loss of minor actinides during reprocessing.