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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.
Sushil K. Bhatnagar
Nuclear Technology | Volume 120 | Number 3 | December 1997 | Pages 224-230
Technical Paper | Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35413
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Penetration shielding design for primary and secondary shield walls in a nuclear power plant proceeds in several iterative cycles. These cycles are needed to refine the conceptual designs for numerous, often conflicting, requirements. These requirements include the following: worker occupancy, in-service inspections, ventilation, pressure and temperature transient controls, equipment qualification, etc. Because the determination of neutron and gamma radiation levels in the containment building of a nuclear power plant requires a three-dimensional calculation, which is both very complicated and expensive, simplified but conservative procedures are needed to provide that input for various other analyses. Once an optimized design is developed, it can be confirmed by either a full three-dimensional analysis or acceptable combinations of discrete ordinates and Monte Carlo methods. The isotropic analog method and its enhancement are presented to provide such an alternative. Included are the methodology, its justification, confirmation, limitations, and suggestions for additional development. This method has already been used for the shielding design of two nuclear power plants and shown to be conservative by a factor of between 2 and 5.