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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.
J. H. Lee, Y. H. Kang, S. C. Hwang, J. B. Shim, E. H. Kim, S. W. Park
Nuclear Technology | Volume 162 | Number 2 | May 2008 | Pages 135-143
Technical Paper | First International Pyroprocessing Research Conference | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3940
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The conventional electrorefiners to treat a metallic spent fuel equipped with a steel cathode have a sticking characteristic that hinders their overall processing efficiency. The critical question in order to enhance their throughput is how to decrease the sticking coefficient of the cathode. In order to realize this purpose, the conventional steel cathode was replaced with a graphite one. The graphite cathode exhibited self-scraping behavior in which the electrodeposited uranium dendrite falls from the cathode surface on its own without any kind of mechanical operation such as a scraping and rotation of the electrode. This self-scraping phenomenon of the graphite cathode was interpreted to be due to the formation of a uranium graphite intercalation compound. In this self-scraping mechanism, uranium atoms elongate at the graphite's outermost layer by an intercalation reaction, so the deposited uranium dendrite falls off spontaneously as the gravitational force exceeds the bonding strength of the layers. Based on our preliminary work, a self-scraping should increase the efficiency of an electrorefiner due to the elimination of a mechanical scraping as well as the electrolytic stripping steps of the cathode.
