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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.
Jiyun Zhao, Pradip Saha, Mujid S. Kazimi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 164 | Number 1 | October 2008 | Pages 20-33
Technical Paper | Icapp '06 | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A4005
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As the last topic of a series of U.S. reference supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR) design stability studies, coupled neutronic-thermal-hydraulic out-of-phase stability is analyzed and compared with that of a typical boiling water reactor (BWR). A modal expansion method based on modes (reactivity modes) of the neutron kinetic equation is applied, and the first subcritical mode of the neutron dynamics model is coupled with the coolant thermal-hydraulic model. The out-of-phase oscillation of the SCWR is found to be dominated by the reactor thermal hydraulics, whereas the BWR is more sensitive to the coolant density reactivity coefficient because of much stronger neutronic coupling. It is also found that the SCWR stability is sensitive to the details of the core simulation model and the hottest channel dominates the stability. The BWR is less sensitive to the core simulation model since it has much stronger neutronic coupling that is controlled by the whole-core average properties. Power and flow rate sensitivity analysis of the out-of-phase stability was also conducted for both the SCWR and the BWR. The SCWR stability is found to be more sensitive to the operating parameters than the typical BWR. Although the water rod heating can improve the SCWR out-of-phase stability, it cannot significantly improve the sensitivity feature.