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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.
T. A. Taiwo, T. K. Kim, J. A. Stillman, R. N. Hill, M. Salvatores, P. J. Finck
Nuclear Technology | Volume 155 | Number 1 | July 2006 | Pages 34-54
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3744
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Options for both full and partial transuranics (TRU) recycle in pressurized water reactors with a heterogeneous assembly design have been assessed. The impacts of these options on proliferation resistance, fuel handling, and repository performance were evaluated. The results indicate that the option of all-TRU recycle is the one most beneficial for the repository and nonproliferation, but this option also results in the most problems for fuel handling at the fabrication stage as a result of the high spontaneous fission neutron emission rate. Recycling americium in the fuel cycle provides significant benefits for both nonproliferation and repository performance over that obtained with plutonium-only recycling. Coupling americium recycling in the fuel cycle with storage of curium is an option that appears promising, if an appropriate solution for curium storage is found. Results for the various performance indices suggest that at least seven recycles of the TRU can be performed using the heterogeneous assembly design, provided remote handling of fuel is a price that is acceptable for the transmutation mission. Three recycles with an extended cooling interval prior to loading in advanced reactor transmutation systems is another option; the delay time provided by this campaign could be used to develop and deploy the advanced systems.