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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.
Rodolfo Vaghetto, Yassin A. Hassan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 187 | Number 3 | September 2014 | Pages 282-293
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-130
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Very High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (VHTR) is one of the next-generation nuclear reactors designed to achieve high temperatures to support industrial applications and power generation. Because of the high temperature reached during normal operation, new safety features were added to its design. The reactor cavity cooling system (RCCS) is a passive safety system that will be incorporated in the VTHR. The system was designed to remove the heat from the reactor cavity and maintain the temperature of structures and concrete walls under desired limits during normal operation (steady state) and accident scenarios. A small-scale (1:23) water-cooled experimental facility was scaled, designed, and constructed in order to study the thermal-hydraulic phenomena taking place in the RCCS during steady-state and transient conditions. The facility represents a portion of the reactor vessel with nine stainless steel coolant risers and utilizes water as coolant. The facility was equipped with instrumentation to measure temperatures and flow rates. A steady-state experimental run was conducted to study the behavior of the coolant under this condition. The experimental results obtained confirmed the capabilities of the system in removing the heat from the cavity and helped in identifying phenomena that may occur in this type of passive system.
