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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.
Matt Bernard, Ted Worosz, Seungjin Kim, Chris Hoxie
Nuclear Technology | Volume 190 | Number 3 | June 2015 | Pages 225-235
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-70
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study investigates two issues in the practical application of the local conductivity probe for two-phase flow measurements. First, the effects of signal “ghosting,” an electrical interference inherent to multiplexing data acquisition systems, on the measured two-phase flow parameters are examined. A revised conductivity probe circuit is proposed to remove the effects of ghosting. The characteristics of signal ghosting are investigated experimentally with a specialized conductivity probe that enables concurrent acquisition of ghosted and unghosted signals within the same flow condition. It is demonstrated that ghosting causes bubble velocity measurements that are artificially high and, consequently, artificially low interfacial area concentration measurements that depend on sampling frequency and sensor impedance. The revised circuit successfully eliminates this variability. Second, the sensitivity of measured two-phase flow parameters to increasing data acquisition sampling frequency is investigated experimentally. Measurements are acquired at incrementally increasing sampling frequencies with a four-sensor conductivity probe in 13 vertical-upward air-water two-phase flow conditions with superficial liquid and gas velocities ranging from 1.00 to 5.00 m/s and 0.17 to 2.0 m/s, respectively. It is found that the void fraction and average bubble velocity are insensitive to the sampling frequency, while the detected number of bubbles and interfacial area concentration can demonstrate a strong dependence. Considerations for selecting appropriate sampling frequencies in different flow conditions are discussed.