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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.
R. Pericas, K. Ivanov, F. Reventós, L. Batet
Nuclear Technology | Volume 198 | Number 2 | May 2017 | Pages 193-201
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1299493
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper compares the Best-Estimate Plus Uncertainty (BEPU) methodology with the Conservative Bounding methodology for design-basis-accident analysis. Calculations have been performed with TRACE [for thermal-hydraulic (TH) system calculations] and PARCS [for neutron-kinetics (NK) modeling] under the SNAP platform. DAKOTA is used under the SNAP interface for uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. A simplified three-dimensional (3-D) neutronics model of the Ascó II nuclear power plant is used as the core kinetic model. The TH model is a one-dimensional representation of the primary and secondary systems except for the vessel, which is represented by a 3-D VESSEL component. The design-basis transient selected for the comparison is a main steam line break (MSLB) in a pressurized water reactor. This transient is characterized by space-time effects and requires coupled 3-D kinetics and TH modeling, especially for the recriticality scenario. The comparison methodology is as follows. Once the models are created, a best-estimate base case calculation is performed. The model is modified by selecting the most important parameters and assigning conservative values to them in order to obtain a conservative calculation. Several parameters are modified in this conservative way. These parameters are then perturbed in BEPU calculations. At the end, a comparison is made between results obtained in the conservative calculation and the BEPU methodology, respectively. As a general conclusion the BEPU method has been successfully illustrated in a coupled 3-D kinetics and TH system. Also, the study is an effective test for the adequacy of nodalizations for the neutronic and TH utilized codes. The BEPU methodology gives more margins, which allows for higher operational flexibility of the plant. The results of the BEPU methodology help improve the plant economics while meeting the safety standards. As a conclusion, the BEPU methodology has been successfully tested in NK-TH calculations. Narrow margins between the upper and lower BEPU cases are a consequence of the few perturbed parameters chosen and the transient boundary conditions.
