Temperature controlled material irradiation in the advanced test reactor

The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is located at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) near Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA and is owned and regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE). The ATR is operated for the US DOE by Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies. In recent years, prime irradiation space in the ATR has been made available for use by customers having irradiation service needs in addition to the reactor's principal user, the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. To enhance the reactor's capabilities, the US DOE has initiated the development of an Irradiation Test Vehicle (ITV) capable of providing neutron spectral tailoring and temperature control for up to 28 experiments. The ATR-ITV will have the flexibility to simultaneously support a variety of experiments requiring fast, thermal or mixed spectrum neutron environments. Temperature control is accomplished by varying the thermal conductivity across a gas gap established between the experiment specimen capsule wall and the experiment 'in-pile tube (IPT)' inside diameter. Thermal conductivity is adjusted by alternating the control gas mixture ratio of two gases with different thermal conductivities