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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.
Holly R. Trellue, Robert C. Little, Morgan C. White, Robert E. MacFarlane, A. C. Kahler
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 832-836
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 Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-2
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Following the release of ENDF/B-VII.0 evaluations, an ACE-formatted continuous-energy neutron data library called ENDF70 for MCNP has been produced at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This new library contains data for 387 isotopes and three elements at five temperatures: 293.6, 600, 900, 1200, and 2500 K. It can be obtained as part of the MCNP5 1.50 release. The new library was created using ENDF/B-VII.0 neutron evaluations and primarily version 248 of NJOY99. A processing script was created that set up the input files for NJOY and employed checking codes to test the content of the processed data. A sample MCNP run was performed for each isotope and temperature, and cross sections for each isotope were plotted to make sure there were no major problems. The processed ACE libraries did not always pass all quality assurance tests. For example, energy-balance problems were identified for several evaluations having negative heating numbers or inconsistencies between total and partial heating. Similarly, some problems were found with unresolved resonance probability tables, resulting in probability tables being excluded from the final library for several materials. Certain evaluations were modified and reprocessed as a result of the quality assurance tests, and some data points in the final ACE files were changed because they were too small or had other problems. The new ENDF70 library provides MCNP users with the latest ENDF/B data available. This collection of data includes a larger range of isotopes and temperatures than previously released, which will be beneficial in numerous applications. The upgrades included as part of ENDF/B-VII.0 and, hence, ENDF70 should improve calculations.