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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.
S. A. Letts, S. Bhandarkar, M. Stadermann, J. Birnbaum
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 63-69
Technical Paper | Nineteenth Target Fabrication Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-3719
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Ultraviolet (UV)-cured adhesives are used to assemble targets for the National Ignition Campaign. Since cure behavior and adhesive strength are critical to successful, leak-free production of targets, it is desirable to establish a testing procedure to verify the viability of adhesives. To measure reaction conversion, we used Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, viscometry, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) each specially adapted to allow UV exposure within the measuring instrument. We found that photo-DSC was the most sensitive technique of those we investigated for measuring conversion and reaction rate. The effect of adhesive age was measured. We found that as adhesives aged the total heat of reaction dropped.
