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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.
Kari Rasilainen, Juhani Suksi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 120 | Number 3 | December 1997 | Pages 254-260
Technical Note | Radioisotopes and Isotope | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35416
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The sensitivity of the dating of long-term uranium attachment to bedrock fractures was studied using radioactive dis-equilibria in the natural 238U decay chain. For this purpose, fracture coating samples were taken from the uranium deposit at Palmottu, Finland. A general simulation model was derived for the evolution of the 234U/238U and 230Th/234U disequilibria. Instantaneous, continuous, and multistage uranium accumulation modes were tested to see their effect on the model age. All accumulations produced different, but internally consistent, model ages, except the multistage scenario that yielded a nonunique dating. The simulation model and scenario technique provide a good modeling approach, and the real challenge in uranium-series dating appears to be the quantification of the accumulation rates.
