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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.
Bruno Merk (Univ of Liverpool), Dennis Allen (Amec Foster Wheeler), Mark Bankhead (NNL), Andy Bowen (Amec Foster Wheeler), Dave Bowman (Univ of Liverpool), Siman de Haas (Rolls-Royce Nuclear), Jefri Draup (EDF Energy), Lynn Dwyer (Univ of Liverpool), Matt Eaton (Imperial College London), Erwan Galenne (EDF-Energy), Chris Jackson (Rolls-Royce Nuclear), Chi Kin Lai, Andrew Levers (Univ of Liverpool), Ben Lindley (Amec Foster Wheeler), Dzianis Litskevich (Univ of Liverpool), Luke Mason (STFC), Geoff Parks (Univ of Cambridge), Edoardo Patelli, Eann Patterson (Univ of Liverpool), Aiden Peakman (NNL), Eugene Shwageraus (Univ of Cambridge), Andy Smethurst, Paul Smith (Amec Foster Wheeler), Adrian Toland (STFC), Konstantin Vikhorev (Univ of Liverpool)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 1085-1090
The UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has recently launched a national R&D programme with a work package on Digital Reactor Design. It consists of development of a Nuclear Virtual Engineering Capability within an integrated Modelling and Simulation Programme. A key challenge of nuclear reactor modelling and simulation is system complexity, which arises from a wide range of important multi-physics phenomena appearing across multiple length scales requiring a multi scale and multi methodological approach. In a final stage an integrated nuclear digital environment (INDE) is envisaged providing a link between modelling and simulation data and real world data across the whole nuclear lifecycle. For the demonstration of the capabilities ‘Challenge problems/Use cases’ will be defined to target future capability developments on the path to the future integrated nuclear digital environment (INDE). PWR and AGR simulation cases have already been specified. The AGR case considers the through-life structural performance of graphite bricks in a stepwise multi-scale, multi-physics approach to support reactor operations and lifetime extension. The PWR case is based on core multi-physics modelling of a control rod ejection accident. Additional use cases to demonstrate the advanced visualization tools of the virtual engineering centre are currently under development.