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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.
C. A. Frederick, R. R. Paguio, A. Nikroo, J. H. Hund, O. Acennas, M. Thi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 4 | May 2006 | Pages 657-662
Technical Paper | Target Fabrication | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1182
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Resorcinol Formaldehyde (R/F) foam has been used in the fabrication of direct drive shell targets for Inertial Fusion Confinement (ICF) experiments at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE). Recent cryogenic experiments at LLE using R/F shells have shown the necessity of larger pore foam compared to the standard R/F formulation. In this paper, we report controlling the pore size of R/F foam with concomitant control of the gelation time, which is crucial for successful shell fabrication. The "standard" formulation, with pores of <100 nm, was modified by decreasing the base catalyst to resorcinol concentration ratio creating a large pore R/F foam (~ >0.5 m) through reaction limited aggregation. However, this formulation decreased the gelation time, which decreased the yield of shells with proper wall uniformity (~ 30%) to an unacceptable level of <1%. We developed a technique to achieve control over the gelation time, while keeping the large pore characteristics of R/F to improve shell non-uniformity and increasing the yield to an acceptable level. We also developed a new technique for large pore formation involving changes to the acid catalyst concentration. The effects of this new formulation on the wall uniformity of shells are discussed. The pore distributions obtained using these new R/F foams were characterized using a variety of techniques, including electron microscopy, nitrogen gas adsorption, visible spectroscopy, and small angle x-ray scattering and compared to the standard small pore formulation.