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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.
R. M. Ronningen, Georg Bollen, Igor Remec
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 670-675
Accelerators | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9287
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of the study is to obtain estimates of limits on uncontrolled beam losses of heavy ions for allowing hands-on maintenance at a heavy-ion linac for a rare isotope beam facility. Semiempirical formulas are used to estimate dose equivalent rates from activated accelerator components for 1 W/m uncontrolled losses of protons up to 1 GeV. The estimated dose rates after a 100-day irradiation time, 4-h postshutdown cooling time are compared to a hands-on maintenance limit of 1 mSv/h (100 mrem/h) at 30 cm. The transport codes PHITS and MCNP5 and activation code DCHAIN-SP 2001 are used to verify the estimate for proton losses and to obtain limits on heavy-ion beam losses that will satisfy the hands-on maintenance dose rate limit.
