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Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.
Kosuke Aizawa, Kaoru Fujita, Hideki Kamide, Naoto Kasahara
Nuclear Technology | Volume 189 | Number 2 | February 2015 | Pages 111-121
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-156
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Japan Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (JSFR) is studied as an advanced loop-type sodium-cooled reactor. A selector-valve (SV) mechanism is adopted in the design of JSFR for its failed fuel detection and location (FFDL) system. JSFR has only two FFDL units for 562 core fuel subassemblies to reduce construction cost by decreasing the reactor vessel diameter. Consequently, one SV-FFDL unit must handle about 300 subassemblies. Because of the large number of subassemblies per unit, it is predicted that the total duration for measuring all the fuel subassemblies becomes long. In addition, JSFR adopts an upper internal structure (UIS) with a slit above the core. In order to detect the fission products from the subassemblies below the slit, additional sampling nozzles for the FFDL are set in the UIS around the slit. In previous water experiments and numerical simulation, the sampling performance for the subassemblies under the UIS slit has been evaluated to be lower than those under the normal UIS position. In this paper, the outline of the FFDL system is shown, which can be applied to a large number of fuel subassemblies in a compact reactor vessel. The detection capability of the FFDL system was studied to achieve the design conditions. Operation modes and procedures of the FFDL system were also investigated.
