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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.
R. R. Paguio, S. P. Paguio, C. A. Frederick, A. Nikroo, O. Acenas
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 4 | May 2006 | Pages 743-749
Technical Paper | Target Fabrication | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1195
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Poly(-methylstyrene) (PAMS) shells are made by microencapsulation and used in the fabrication of a large variety of targets for the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program. Although this process has previously been developed into production mode, the yield of shells with acceptable sphericity and wall uniformity in the OMEGA size range (800-1000 m) has been poor (~ 18%). We have made improvements in the yield of these shells by modifying the composition of the outer water solution (W2) in the microencapsulation emulsion. This improvement was achieved by increasing the concentration of Poly Vinyl Alcohol (PVA) from 0.3% to 1.0% and an addition of 0.1% Poly Acrylic Acid (PAA). These modifications were aimed at increasing the interfacial surface tension in the emulsion but also appear to have played a role in density matching the components in the PAMS emulsion. These modifications improved the out of round (OOR) and non-concentricity (NC) of the PAMS mandrels resulting in as increase in the yield of target quality batches based on these basic criteria from 18% to over 80%. Meanwhile, the vacuole content and the surface finish of the PAMS shells were not adversely affected by these changes.