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The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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.
Franco Michel-Sendis, Sébastien Chabod, Alain Letourneau, Stefano Panebianco, Jean-Christian Toussaint
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 322-327
Neutron Measurements | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (Part 2) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT168-322
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The MEGAPIE project, a 1-MW liquid lead-bismuth spallation target, has operated successfully at Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. It constitutes the first step in demonstrating the feasibility of heavy liquid-metal target technologies for accelerator driven systems. With the 4-month irradiation phase now concluded, the experiment has provided unique data for a better understanding of the behavior of the target under realistic irradiation conditions. A complex neutron detector, which has journeyed throughout all of the irradiation inside the target and close to the proton beam, has been extracted along with metallic foil monitors. These have provided a measure of the total inner neutron flux. This paper aims to present the current developments in this analysis and in the Monte Carlo simulations that have been performed.
