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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.
Oleg G. Povetko
Nuclear Technology | Volume 163 | Number 1 | July 2008 | Pages 31-37
Technical Paper | High-Level Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3967
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Radioactive waste-handling operations at a potential high-level radioactive waste (HLW) geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, would involve receiving, processing, aging, and emplacing HLW equivalent to 70 000 t of heavy metal. This paper presents results of an independent analysis of the external radiation dose fields for various designs at a potential repository underground facility, performed at the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses. In order to analyze dose fields, radiation source terms have been developed for commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assemblies. Full-scale three-dimensional models of waste packages and underground repository drifts were used in the Monte Carlo radiation transport simulations. Radiation dose rates along the drifts have been evaluated for multiple waste packages for SNF-emitted photons, neutrons, and 60Co photons. Analysis shows that SNF photons contribute >68%, 60Co photons contribute <30%, and neutrons contribute <2% to the total dose rates. The contribution of photons scattered off the drift walls is <10% of the total dose rates. The drift elbow significantly blocks direct radiation shine and reduces scattered dose rates at the junction of turnout and main access drifts where workers could be present.
