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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.
Jun Woo Bae, Hee Reyoung Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 192 | Number 3 | December 2015 | Pages 215-221
Technical Paper | Radiation Measurements and General Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-131
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A design and performance test of an antiscattering X-ray grid that is based on photosensitive glass was conducted using MCNP simulation. The simulation was designed in three parts: source, scatterer, and grid. The source was a cone type with a single energy of 50 keV, and the scatterer was designed as a box with elemental composition and density the same as those of a human body. Three types of grid were tested: ideal, injection, and electroplating. The ideal-type grid was generally known and contained only a shielding wall, the injection-type grid had the shielding material injected into the glass, and the electroplating-type grid had the shielding material electroplated on the glass lattice skeleton. The ideal-type grid showed a scattered and primary photon ratio (SPR) of 0.106, and the nongrid type showed an SPR of 0.159. The injection-type grid had an SPR of 0.126, which corresponded to 119.3% of that of the ideal type. The electroplating-type grid had an SPR of 0.0964, which corresponded to 93.7% of that of the ideal type. It was understood that the electroplating-type grid showed the most effective reduction of the scattered photons in terms of SPR.
