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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.
Mohamed E. Krar, Ahmed M. El-Khatib, Mohamed S. Badawi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 187 | Number 2 | August 2014 | Pages 208-219
Regular Technical Paper | Radiation Measurements and General Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-109
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this work, the full energy peak efficiency for a system of two NaI gamma detectors using spherical radioactive sources is evaluated by applying a new numerical algorithm method, since experimental calibration using volumetric sources is a dominant problem of practical gamma spectrometry. The new method is based on the efficiency transfer technique, where the effective solid angles, the effect of self-absorption of the source matrix, and absorption by the source container and the detector housing materials on detector efficiency are considered. The experimental calibration procedure was done using radioactive spherical sources containing aqueous 152Eu radionuclide, which produces photons with a wide range of energies from 121.78 up to 1408.03 keV. The comparison shows good agreement between the measured and calculated efficiencies for the detector using spherical sources.
