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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.
K. Vogt, G. Fehrenbacher, A. Knapp, T. Radon
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 528-532
Shielding | 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/NT09-A9238
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The new experimental storage ring (NESR) is one of the new facilities planned for the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) project. It is conceived as a versatile storage ring used for experiments with stored ion beams (up to 740 MeV/u for uranium beams) and for the deceleration of antiprotons from the injection energy of 3 GeV, which are subsequently extracted and used for experiments elsewhere.The planning of the shielding requires particular accuracy because rooms adjacent to the NESR are desired to be accessible at all times. Extensive shielding calculations have been done using the Monte Carlo code FLUKA. Calculations were performed separately for the different operation modes of the storage ring, as well as for the different parts of the facility. Because of the large shielding thicknesses required (up to [approximately]4 m), biasing techniques had to be employed. While the results of the calculations confirmed that the planned shielding is sufficient in most places, two areas have been identified where a reinforcement of the shielding is recommended.