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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 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.
Nisy E. Ipe
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 559-563
Shielding Materials | 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-A9243
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A typical particle therapy facility consists of an injector, a cyclotron or a synchrotron, a high-energy transport beam line, several treatment rooms including fixed-beam and gantry rooms, and even a research area. During the operation of these facilities, radiation is produced with neutrons being the dominant component outside the shielding. These facilities have large amounts of shielding with concrete thicknesses ranging up to [approximately]5 m or more. Space required for shielding can be minimized by using composite shielding or high-density material such as Ledite® (manufactured by Atomic International, Frederick, Pennsylvania). Transmission data for radiation from protons and carbon ions incident on tissue targets with energies in the therapeutic energy range of interest were derived using the Monte Carlo code FLUKA for three different compositions of Ledite. Use of Ledite® or composite shielding results in space savings when compared to concrete.