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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.
Travis W. Knight, G. Ronald Dalton, James S. Tulenko
Nuclear Technology | Volume 117 | Number 2 | February 1997 | Pages 255-266
Technical Paper | Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35330
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A virtual reality system was developed for computational and graphical modeling and simulation of radiation environments. This system, called Virtual Radiation Fields (VRF), demonstrates the usefulness of radiological analysis in simulation-based design for predicting radiation doses for robotic equipment and personnel working in a radiation environment. The system was developed for use in determining the radiation doses forobotic equipment to be used in tank-waste retrieval operations at the Hanford National Laboratory. As a reference case, specific application is made to simulate cleanup operations for Hanford tank C-106. A three-dimensional model representation of the tank and its predicted radiation levels are presented and analyzed. Tank cleanup operations were simulated to understand how radiation levels change during the cleanup phase and to predict cumulative radiation doses to robotic equipment to aid in the development of maintenance and replacement schedules.
