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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.
Koichi Uozumi, Takatoshi Hijikata, Takeshi Tsukada, Tadafumi Koyama, Takayuki Terai, Akihiro Suzuki
Nuclear Technology | Volume 188 | Number 1 | October 2014 | Pages 83-96
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-49
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A zeolite column system is under development to realize both a high decontamination factor and high throughput for the treatment of the spent salt generated in the pyroprocessing of the metal fuel cycle. To study the feasibility of the zeolite column system from an engineering aspect, an engineering-scale zeolite column apparatus was installed. Measurements of the superficial velocities of molten salt passing through the columns filled with granular form type-A zeolite at various driving pressures showed that the conventional relationship of the velocity and pressure loss in the components of the apparatus can be useful for the molten salt system. Then, a demonstration test to simulate the decontamination of a fission product, which was represented by cesium, was performed using a zeolite that had been pretreated in aqueous solutions to remove the sodium. Although the absorbed amount of cesium was not as high as previously reported, the concentration of cesium in the effluent salt exhibited a breakthrough curve. Therefore, some of the cesium in the salt was absorbed into the zeolite, and accordingly, the feasibility of the zeolite column system was demonstrated.