Facilities

NE has world-class facilities where scientists and engineers perform cutting-edge research.

Aerosol Lab: The Aerosol Lab (AL) houses equipment to measure and record the physical parameters necessary to characterize the formation and transport of aerosols... [more]

Computer Facilities (CF): State-of-the-art equipment provided to in-house staff and collaborating scientists. We have a Beowulf cluster (3 control nodes and 105 computer nodes) as an advanced computational platform for performing a variety of engineering analyses. We also use facilities outside the Division such as Jazz, a terascale (10E12 calculations per second) Linux computing cluster with 350 nodes, and the CAVE, one of the four sophisticated automatic virtual environment systems in existence... [more]

Engineering Development Laboratory (EDL): The Engineering Development Laboratory (EDL) facilities are used to obtain information on the behavior of molten nuclear fuel, both in-reactor pressure vessel and ex-vessel... [more]

Environmentally Assisted Cracking (EAC) Laboratory: Four autoclave systems used to evaluate the resistance of nuclear reactor structural materials environmentally assisted cracking in simulated LWR coolant environments... [more]

High Temperature Corrosion Test Facilities and High Pressure Test Facilities for Metal Dusting: Six corrosion test facilities and two thermogravimetric systems for conducting corrosion tests in complex mixed gas environments, in steam and in the presence of deposits, and five facilities for metal dusting degradation... [more]

Irradiated Materials Laboratory (IML): Used to conduct research on the behavior of commercial nuclear reactor materials, including fuel cladding, pressure vessel steels, and other in-reactor components. The four beta-gamma hot cells and the glove boxes are used to determine mechanical properties of these materials and degradation due to long-time operation in corrosive and irradiation environments. Loss-of coolant accident environment is also simulated to allow determination of post-quench ductility... [more]

Laser Applications Laboratory (LAL): The Laser Applications Laboratory (LAL) houses two high-power laser systems, complete with diagnostics for materials-processing functions - a 6 kW CO2 laser and a 1.6 kW pulsed Nd:YAG laser... [more]

Natural Convection Shutdown Heat Removal Test Facility (NSTF): Originally built to aid in the development of General Electric’s Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) Reactor Vessel Auxiliary Cooling System (RVACS), Argonne National Laboratory’s Natural Convection Shutdown Heat Removal Test Facility (NSTF) provided confirmatory data for the airside of the RVACS. Today, as a large-scale integral test facility, the NSTF is being modified for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Concept (ARC) program. When completed, the NSTF will confirm the performance of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) reactor cavity cooling systems (RCCS) and similar passive confinement or containment decay heat removal systems in Small Modular Reactors. With a height of 26.2 m and a test section area of 150 cm x 132 cm, NSTF will be one of the largest test facilities in the world for ex-vessel passive decay heat removal testing… [more]

Non-destructive Evaluation (NDE) and Testing Facilities: The Non-destructive Evaluation (NDE) and Testing Facilities contain state-of-the-art NDE laboratories including microwave/millimeter wave, acoustic/ultrasonic, X-ray, thermal imaging, optics, and eddy current for health monitoring of materials and components used in aerospace, defense, and power generation (fossil and nuclear) industries as well as for medical and scientific research... [more]

Prototype Cathode Processor (PCP): The Prototype Cathode Processor (PCP) is a high-temperature vacuum furnace capable of retorting volatile components of the charge material and producing a consolidated ingot (used primarily for research on spent nuclear fuel processing)... [more]

Robotics Laboratory (RL): The Robotics Laboratory (RL) houses various remote manipulator systems, including the Dual Arm Work Platform, to support enhancements to teleoperation of remote systems for nuclear applications... [more]

Sodium Plugging Test Loop: This experimental setup is part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) work being conducted at Argonne on sodium components testing for the Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR) plant design... [more]

Sodium Reactor Experimental Test Facility (SRETF): The Sodium Reactor Experimental Test Facility (SRETF) is a fully instrumented facility for conducting and observing reaction experiments between moist gases, steam and alkali metals... [more]

Steam Generator Tube Integrity Facilities: The facilities include the High Temperature Blowdown Facility, the Room Temperature High Pressure Facility, the Tube/Tube-sheet Severe Accident Leakage Facility, and the Model Boiler Facility... [more]

Transmission Electron Microscope and Scanning Electron Microscopes: The research activities of the Corrosion and Mechanics of Materials Section are supported by complete metallography/sample preparation rooms equipped with several optical and electron microscopes: a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and two Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEMs)... [more]

Last Modified: Wed, February 13, 2013 7:52 PM