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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.
Gang Zhang, Shibo Mei, Kaijie Xie, Zhen Yang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 10 | October 2021 | Pages 1564-1577
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1824965
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fatigue state of nuclear power operators is of vital importance to the safe operation of a nuclear power plant. With the development of the digital manipulation interface in recent years, the fatigue type and degree of operators have undergone changes. The interface of the nuclear power monitoring task is simulated in this experiment, and multiple fatigue detection modes are used to measure the fatigue state of operators. Results show that the subjective fatigue reporting method and PERCLOS P80 can reflect the change of fatigue state. The correlation between task performance and fatigue is not remarkable, and the sensitivity of the electrocardiographic heart rate variability indicator is poor. The accuracy also remains to be further verified.