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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.
Wasim Raza, Kwang-Yong Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 162 | Number 1 | April 2008 | Pages 45-52
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3932
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A hybrid multiobjective evolutionary approach to the design optimization of a seven-pin wire-wrapped fuel assembly is applied to achieve an acceptable compromise between two conflicting objectives: enhancement of heat transfer and reduction of pressure drop. Two nondimensional variables, the ratio of wire-spacer diameter to fuel rod diameter and the ratio of wire-wrap pitch to fuel rod diameter, are chosen as design variables. The Latin hypercube sampling method is used to determine the training points. The response surface method is used to approximate the Pareto-optimal front with Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes analysis of the flow and heat transfer. The shear stress transport turbulence model is used as turbulence closure. The optimization results are processed by the Pareto-optimal method. The Pareto-optimal solutions are obtained using a combination of the evolutionary algorithm NSGA-II and a local search method. The Pareto-optimal front for the wire-wrapped fuel assembly has been obtained. Six optimal values of the design variables have been obtained using clustering. With the increase in the wire-spacer diameter, both heat transfer and pressure drop in the assembly increase. Increasing the wire-wrap pitch reduces the pressure drop in the assembly at the cost of heat transfer.