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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.
Vladimir Kogan, Philip M. Schumacher
Nuclear Technology | Volume 161 | Number 2 | February 2008 | Pages 190-202
Technical Note | Miscellaneous | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3922
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper summarizes the results of an independent review of information from the available literature on plutonium release parameters obtained in worldwide studies on accidental fires that might occur in nuclear facilities and generates technically justifiable recommendations on plutonium releases based on this review. This work was limited to the accidental fires in nuclear facilities involving plutonium-contaminated waste materials that can be in either solid or liquid form, as well as involving plutonium metal itself. Releases of plutonium are expressed in terms of the airborne release fraction (ARF), defined as the total fraction of initial material released in the accident, or the airborne release rate, which is the average rate at which ARF is released for the duration of the accident. Respirable fraction of the mass of plutonium dispersed in the air is conditionally assumed to include particles having aerodynamic diameters smaller than 10 m (aerodynamic diameter of a particle is defined as the diameter of a unit density sphere having the same aerodynamic properties as the particle; particles of any shape or density will have the same aerodynamic diameter if their settling velocity is the same). For intense fires in solid waste storage areas or large explosions associated with plutonium metal, up to 50% of the plutonium contamination may be released as respirable aerosol.