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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.
M. Stadermann, S. A. Letts, S. Bhandarkar
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 58-62
Technical Paper | Nineteenth Target Fabrication Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-3714
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The centering of an ignition target capsule strongly depends on high-quality "tents" with closely matched mechanical properties. The relevant properties are tent stiffness and relaxation behavior. Tent stiffness is matched by choosing tents of equal thickness. Here, we describe recent advances in tent fabrication that have increased the quality and production rate of tents. The most significant improvement comes from the use of a meniscus coater to produce Formvar tents of high uniformity and with good control of tent thickness and good yield. Other improvements include a switch to silicon wafers as deposition substrate and standardized tent holders. The improvements have resulted in a sixfold increase of the production rate while increasing the yield by a factor of 2, despite tighter quality control.