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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.
G. A Esteban, F. Legarda, A. Perujo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 617-620
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Materials Interaction and Permeation | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A1001
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A time-dependent gas-phase absorption-desorption technique has been used to evaluate the isotope effect on the diffusive transport parameters of hydrogen isotopes in polycrystalline tungsten and the reduced activation ferritic-martensitic steel OPTIFER-IVb.Experiments have been run with both protium and deuterium obtaining their respective transport parameters of diffusivity (D), Sieverts' constant (Ks), the trap site density (Nt) and the trapping activation energy (Et). Isotope effects on these transport parameters are analysed and modelled. Because the classical isotope relation for diffusivity has not been fulfilled, quantum-statistical vibration theory has been applied to model the isotopic relation. The hydrogen vibration properties description in a metallic-host lattice allows deriving more accurate tritium transport parameters. A congruent isotopic variation of diffusion parameters related to the type of crystal structure, bcc, has been confirmed.
