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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.
A. V. Kiryukhin, E. P. Kaymin, E. V. Zakharova
Nuclear Technology | Volume 164 | Number 2 | November 2008 | Pages 196-206
Technical Paper | Tough206 | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A4019
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
TOUGHREACT V1.0 modeling was used to reproduce laboratory tests involving sandstone samples collected from a deep radionuclide repository site at the Siberia Chemical Plant, Seversk, Russia. Laboratory tests included injection of alkaline fluids into sandstone samples at 70°C. Some minerals were constrained in the model to precipitate or dissolve, according to laboratory test results. Modeling results were compared with observed test data (mineral phase changes, transient concentration data at the outlet of a sample column). Reasonable agreement was obtained between calculated and measured mineral phases (Na-smectite and kaolinite precipitation, quartz, microcline, chlorite, and muscovite dissolution). After a cation exchange option was used in the model, the most abundant secondary mineral generated was dawsonite, which corresponds to sodium carbonates observed in the sample after an injection test. Time-dependent chemical concentrations (transient chemical concentration data) at the outlet of the sample column qualitatively matched the data observed.
