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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.
Hangbok Choi, Chang Joon Jeong, Gyu Hong Roh, Bo Wook Rhee, Myung Seung Yang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 153 | Number 1 | January 2006 | Pages 25-40
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3687
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Since 1992, the direct use of spent pressurized water reactor fuel in Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactors (DUPIC) has been studied as an alternative to the once-through fuel cycle. The DUPIC fuel cycle study is focused on the analysis of technical feasibility, the fabrication of DUPIC fuels for irradiation tests, and the demonstration of the DUPIC fuel performance. The feasibility analysis was conducted for the compatibility of the DUPIC fuel with existing CANDU-6 reactors from the viewpoints of reactor physics, reactor safety, fuel cycle economics, etc. This study has summarized the intermediate results of the DUPIC fuel compatibility analysis, which includes the CANDU reactor physics design requirements, DUPIC fuel core physics design method, performance of the DUPIC fuel core, and the regional overpower trip setpoint. The physics analysis showed the CANDU-6 reactor can accommodate the DUPIC fuel without deteriorating the physics design requirements by adjusting the fuel management scheme if the fissile content of the DUPIC fuel is tightly controlled.
