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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.
Bilge Yildiz, Katherine J. Hohnholt, Mujid S. Kazimi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 155 | Number 1 | July 2006 | Pages 1-21
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3742
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Hydrogen production using high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE) supported by a supercritical CO2 (SCO2) recompression Brayton cycle that is directly coupled to an advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) is proposed in this paper. The system features and efficiency are analyzed in a parametric fashion. The analysis includes the influence of the major components' performance and the component integration in a proposed plant layout. The configuration, HTSE-SCO2-AGR, with thermal recuperation from the product gas streams and an intermediate heat exchanger between the turbine exit and the feedwater stream is found to offer excellent thermal efficiency, operational flexibility, and expected cost. The HTSE average process temperature is 900°C, and the hydrogen pipeline delivery pressure is assumed to be 7 MPa for the evaluation of the plant performance. The reactor exit temperature and the SCO2 cycle turbine inlet temperature are the same as those for the SCO2 recompression cycle design: 550 to 700°C. The 900°C at the HTSE unit, which is higher than the reactor exit temperature, is achieved with recuperative and electrical heating. HTSE is assumed to operate within 80 to 90% voltage efficiency at 1 atm to 7 MPa of pressure. A parametric analysis of these operating conditions shows that the system can achieve 38.6 to 48.2% low heating value of net hydrogen production energy efficiency. The extensive experience from commercial AGRs, the compactness of the SCO2 power conversion system, and the progress in the electrolysis cell materials field can help the economical development of a future recuperative HTSE-SCO2-AGR. The major research and development needs for this plant concept are materials processing for the durability and efficiency of the HTSE system, the design update of the AGR with advanced materials to resist high-pressure CO2 coolant, thermal hydraulics of CO2 at supercritical pressures, and detailed component design for system integration.
