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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.
B. K. Sapra, Y. S. Mayya, Arshad Khan, Faby Sunny, Sunil Ganju, H. S. Kushwaha
Nuclear Technology | Volume 163 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 228-244
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3983
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental nuclear aerosol test facility has been built at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre for validating the aerosol behavior computer codes used in nuclear reactor safety assessment. Its essential components are the 10-m3 stainless steel test vessel, plasma torch aerosol generator, and aerosol instrumentation to study the aerosol characteristics. Studies have been conducted with metal/metal oxide aerosols in dry environments under varying turbulence conditions and the results have been compared with the predictions of NAUA (Mod 5) code. The code predictions were found to differ from the experimental observations. To explain the differences under calm conditions, a gravity-induced spatial stratification model was formulated and solved. It was found that NAUA prediction agrees fairly well with the depletion of total airborne mass given by this model. In the presence of turbulence, the code overestimated the airborne concentrations. This is attributed to the noninclusion of particle removal by inertial impaction. Accordingly, the deposition velocity formula used in the code was modified based on the Crump-Seinfeld approach. With this modification, the results of airborne mass depletion agreed quite well with the measured data. On the whole, the study provides validated modifications in the NAUA (Mod 5) code to include turbulence effects and a formulation of gravity-induced stratification of aerosols under calm conditions.