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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.
Ehud Greenspan, Pavel Hejzlar, Hiroshi Sekimoto, Georgy Toshinsky, David Wade
Nuclear Technology | Volume 151 | Number 2 | August 2005 | Pages 177-191
Technical Paper | Advances in Nuclear Fuel Management - Fuel Management of Reactors Other Than Light Water Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-A3642
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fast reactors cooled by lead or lead-bismuth alloy offer new interesting fuel cycle and fuel management options by virtue of the superb neutronics and safety features of these heavy liquid metal (HLM) coolants. One option is once-for-life cores having relatively low power density. These cores are fueled in the factory; there is no refueling or fuel shuffling on site. A second option is very long-life cores being made of a fissioning zone and a natural uranium blanket zone. The fissioning zone very slowly drifts toward the blanket. A third option is multirecycling of light water reactor (LWR) discharged fuel without partitioning of transuranics (TRUs) in fuel-self-sustaining reactors. LWR spent fuel could provide the initial fuel loading after extracting fission products and ~90% of its uranium. The makeup fuel is natural or depleted uranium. A fourth option is the high-burnup once-through fuel cycle using natural or depleted uranium feed. The initial fuel loading of this reactor is a mixture of enriched and natural uranium. The natural uranium utilization is 10 to 20 times higher than that of a once-through LWR. A fifth option is transmutation of TRUs from LWRs using critical HLM-cooled reactors; such reactors could be designed to have the same high actinide burning capability of accelerator-driven systems and have comparable safety, but at a substantially lower cost. These novel reactor designs and fuel management options are hereby reviewed.