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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.
Mark W. Wendel, David G. Morris, Paul T. Williams
Nuclear Technology | Volume 114 | Number 1 | April 1996 | Pages 51-67
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35222
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Loss-of-coolant accident analyses have been completed for the High-Flux Isotope Reactor safety analysis report. More than 100 simulations have been performed using the RELAP5/MOD2.5 computer program. The RELAP5 input model used for the simulations is quite detailed, including 17 parallel channels in the core region, the three active heat exchanger cells, the pressurizing system, and the secondary cooling system. Special models are developed to represent the effects of shrinkage in the primary coolant pressure boundary and cavitation of the primary coolant pumps. Six locations in the primary coolant system are selected as pipe break sites to determine the worst-case scenario. At each of the locations, simulations are completed for a range of break diameters. The reactor is assumed to survive the transient as long as the hot-spot heat flux remains below the flow excursion limit. In addition to the baseline simulations, extensive parametric simulations are conducted to ensure that the modeling assumptions used are conservative. For a break diameter of 5.1 cm at any of the six locations in the system, the hot-spot heat flux remains beneath this limit, and furthermore, no boiling occurs in the fuel region. A summary table for all results is presented, and results are discussed in detail for the worst-case 5.1-cm break scenario.