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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.
Christine Mansilla
Nuclear Technology | Volume 162 | Number 3 | June 2008 | Pages 323-332
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3959
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Generation IV nuclear reactors will not be implemented unless they enable lower production costs than with the current systems. In such a context, considering only technical issues such as the performances of the plant is not entirely satisfactory since maximizing the system efficiency does not guarantee a minimum cost. Consequently, a technoeconomic optimization method was developed and then applied to the power conversion system of a very high temperature reactor.Technoeconomic optimization consists in minimizing an objective function that depends on technical and economic variables. The advantage of the technoeconomic optimization compared to classical optimizations based on the efficiency is that it can take into account both investment costs and operating costs.A technoeconomic model was implemented in a specific optimization software named Vizir, which is based on genetic algorithms. The calculation of the thermodynamic cycle is performed by a software named Tugaz.The results are the values of the decision variables that lead to a minimum cost, according to the model. The total production cost is evaluated. The consequences of different modifications of the model are discussed.
