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The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.
Edouard Hourcade (CEA), Takatsugu Mihara (JAEA), , Alexandre Dauphin, Jean-François Dirat (Framatome), Akihiro Ide (MFBR)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 556-561
ASTRID (Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration) has the objective to integrate innovative options with the objective to prepare the 4th generation reactors.
In this framework a French-Japanese agreement was signed in 2014 between CEA, framatome (ex AREVA NP), JAEA, MHI/MFBR to jointly perform components design of ASTRID such as Decay Heat Removal Systems (DHRS).
In this respect an ambitious close collaboration is set in the framework of the practical elimination objective of Decay Heat Removal (DHR) function loss which is one of the main ASTRID safety objectives.
To reach this target, design is driven by deterministic safety criteria, probabilistic safety indicators and proper technical and economic analysis.
Safety demonstration aims at identifying common cause failures and imposes to search for proper diversification of decay heat removal systems. In ASTRID, DHRS main diversification is based on final heat sinks types and intermediate coolant fluids. It is also based on spatial segregation of systems which leads to thermal loading diversification during normal operation as well as severe accident exposure. Implication of two different designers bodies framatome and a Japanese team (JAEA, Mitsubishi FBR Systems (MFBR) and MHI) also participate to diversification.
This paper is giving an update concerning ASTRID DHR strategy with description of reference architecture evolution and project objectives. In particular, new developments were made for DHR during normal shutdown and role of Ex-Vessel system. A special focus is made on design process of automatic shutter to hydraulically connect Hot Plenum and cold plenum to enhance primary vessel natural convection.
