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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.
Ernestas Narkūnas, Artūras Šmaižys, Povilas Poškas, Audrius Šimonis, Valerij Naumov, Dmitrij Ekaterinichev
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 12 | December 2022 | Pages 1876-1889
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2092367
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents an evaluation of the gamma-radiation shielding capabilities of the CONSTOR® RBMK-1500/M2 cask dedicated for the storage of spent nuclear fuel at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania. This cask is of a new design with increased capacity compared to the older CONSTOR RBMK-1500 and CASTOR RBMK-1500 casks and new facility for their interim storage has been installed. “Hot tests” conducted at this new interim storage facility included dose rate measurements of the CONSTOR RBMK-1500/M2 casks that were loaded with particular sets of spent nuclear fuel half-assemblies and transferred to the facility for subsequent interim storage. Having actual data on the spent nuclear fuel half-assemblies that were loaded into a particular cask, gamma dose rate modeling of that CONSTOR RBMK-1500/M2 cask (namely, cask ID 153) was performed. Modeling was performed using the MCNP (based on the stochastic mathematical method) and the VISIPLAN and MicroShield (both based on the deterministic mathematical method) computer codes. The obtained modeling results were compared between the different codes and with the measurement results. The performed analysis revealed that modeled gamma dose rates are in good agreement for all analyzed codes, although agreement with the measurements is to some extent less.
