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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.
Gilles J. Youinou, R. Sonat Sen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 188 | Number 2 | November 2014 | Pages 123-138
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-22
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents a preliminary systems analysis related to most of the currently proposed enhanced accident-tolerant fuel and cladding concepts: fully ceramic microencapsulated fuels, uranium-molybdenum fuels, uranium-nitride fuels, uranium silicide fuels, silicon carbide cladding, advanced steel cladding, and molybdenum cladding. The benefits drawn from the implementation of demonstrated accident-tolerant fuels on the future development of nuclear energy generation as well as public acceptance are difficult to quantify but would probably be very significant. The potential impacts of these innovative light water reactor fuels on the front end of the fuel cycle, on the reactor operation, and on the back end of the fuel cycle are succinctly described.
