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Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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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.
T. E. Booth, K. C. Kelley, S. S. McCready
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 765-767
MC Calculations | 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-A9303
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Dxtran is a deterministic transport method typically used for increasing the sampling in a spherical region that would otherwise not be adequately sampled because the probability of scattering toward the region is often very small. Essentially, the dxtran method splits the particle into two pieces at each source or collision point: a piece that arrives (without further collisions) at the dxtran sphere and a piece that does not. One difficulty with the dxtran method is that it can introduce a large weight fluctuation between particles colliding just before the sphere and particles colliding after crossing the sphere. New work shows that it is possible to mitigate this difficulty by extending the dxtran sphere concept to a set of nested dxtran spheres. Each dxtran sphere then shields its interior from particles whose weights are too large so that weights are more commensurate with their locations. Shielding against the large weights not only increases the efficiency of the calculation but the reliability as well. The effectiveness of the technique in MCNP was demonstrated on a 1-km air transport problem and on a concrete duct problem.