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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.
Valery A. Kashparov, Yuri A. Ivanov, Sergey I. Zvarisch, Valentin P. Protsak, Yuri V. Khomutinin, Alexander D. Kurepin, Edvard M. Pazukhin
Nuclear Technology | Volume 114 | Number 2 | May 1996 | Pages 246-253
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35253
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The oxidation of irradiated Chernobyl nuclear fuel at 670 to 1170 K for 3 to 21 h resulted in its destruction into fine particles, the dispersal composition of which is well described by lognormal distribution regularity. The median radius of the formed particles does not depend on the annealing temperature and decreases with the increase of the annealing period from 10 to 3 μm. Proceeding from the dispersal composition and matrix composition of the Chernobyl hot fuel particles, it can be concluded that the oxidation of nuclear fuel was one of the basic mechanisms of hot fuel particle formation during the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. With oxidation in air and the dispersal of irradiated oxide nuclear fuel at as low as 670 K, ruthenium, located on the granular borders, is released. Ruthenium is oxidized to volatile RuO4, sublimated, and condensed on materials of iron. Nickel and stainless steel can be efficiently used at high temperatures (tested to 1200 K) for radioruthenium adsorption in accidents and for some technological operations. As the temperature of hot fuel particles annealed in inert media increases from 1270 to 2270 K, the relative release of radionuclides increases in the following sequence: cesium isotopes; europium isotopes; cerium isotopes; americium isotopes; and ruthenium, plutonium, and curium isotopes.