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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.
V. P. Sinha, D. Kohli, R. Rakesh, P. V. Thakar, A. Kumar
Nuclear Technology | Volume 192 | Number 1 | October 2015 | Pages 35-47
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-59
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Dispersion-type plate fuel elements are being fabricated with U3Si2 dispersoid (prepared by an innovative powder processing route) in aluminum matrix and clad in Al alloy for the modified core of the APSARA reactor by a standard picture frame technique followed by hot roll bonding operation at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Metallic Fuels Division. The fabrication regime allows the fuel elements to be exposed at 500°C for almost 5 h (total duration including hot roll bonding and blister test operation). Therefore, it is expected that during hot roll bonding and blister test operation, U3Si2 will chemically interact with aluminum and form an intermediate phase. Hence, the chemical interaction behavior of fuel dispersoid (U3Si2, prepared by powder metallurgy route) and matrix (aluminum) in plate fuel elements and its effect on mechanical properties is studied in the present paper.
Therefore, a comparative study between an actual plate fuel element (i.e., U3Si2 dispersed in aluminum matrix and with Al alloy clad) and a sandwich plate with chemically inert material (i.e., Y2O3) as dispersed in aluminum matrix with Al alloy clad was carried out. The roll bonded samples were investigated through pull and peel tests, microhardness, tensile test, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, electron probe microanalysis, and X-ray diffraction for various metallurgical examinations. During the course of study, it was observed that U3Si2 dispersoids in actual plate fuel elements were enveloped by a different phase while the dispersoid of Y2O3 remained inert in the surrogate plate under a similar fabrication history. The study concludes that limited exposure of the actual fuel plate at 500°C for 5 h results in improvement of bond strength mainly due to chemical interaction between fuel dispersoid and aluminum. The study also concludes that the tensile strength and ductility of the fuel plates did not show any adverse effects during dispersoid-matrix chemical interaction; however, the modulus of elasticity was found lower than the theoretically estimated value calculated by composite theory. The observations derived in the study are critical from the viewpoint that a decrease in the elastic modulus of the plate would adversely affect its flow-induced vibration properties during reactor operation. It may also be concluded that exposing the plate fuel elements at 500°C for longer duration (i.e., 30 h) will result in excessive swelling because of the accelerated interaction between dispersoid and matrix, which will eventually deteriorate the desired properties.
