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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.
A. Sawyer, M. Williamson, K. Zhao, A. Ruggles
Nuclear Technology | Volume 151 | Number 3 | September 2005 | Pages 272-280
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-A3649
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A validation study of RELAP5-3D is performed using data from the Model Boiler Number 2 (MB-2) Prototypical Steam Generator Testing Program. The MB-2 is a 6.67-MW(thermal) power-scaled representation of the Westinghouse Model F steam generator. Comparisons with previous simulations using RELAP5/MOD3.2 are also offered. Limit cycles predicted by the RELAP5/MOD3.2 simulation are reduced in the RELAP5-3D simulation using identical nodalization. Steady-state data from the MB-2 tests used in the validation do not exhibit a limit cycle. The sources of the predicted limit cycles are investigated and feedback mechanisms contributing to the limit cycles are explained.
