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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. Bednarczyk, I. Geoffray, G. Perron, O. Legaie, Ph. Baclet
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 4 | May 2006 | Pages 813-817
Technical Paper | Target Fabrication | doi.org/10.13182/FST49-813
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the last years, many applications of pulsed laser in precision machining have been demonstrated. Short pulse durations (nanosecond, picosecond and femtosecond) and short wavelength (U.V. and visible) create small heat-affected zones during the interaction with material such as polymers or metals. In the case of excimer lasers, energy carried by ultra-violet photon is sufficient to break apart molecular bonds without thermal effects, particularly in the case of the 3.7 eV C=H bond. All these properties facilitate high spatial resolution and high accuracy processes. This is especially true in the case of high absorbing carbon-hydrogen polymers.An excimer multipulses engraving technique using time-resolved surface ablation was developped using our home-made laser micro-machining work station. This four-axis work station is composed of motor-controlled translation and rotation stages. This experimental set-up was designed to pattern 3D object by the mean of the association of rotative and translative motions. Sinusoidal recording on polystyrene, polyimide and GDP polymers about ten micrometers spatial frequency and a few micrometers amplitude were performed using binary masks with particular shapes.Applications to hydrodynamics modes growth (which have detrimental effect on fusion burn in the "Megajoule laser" LMJ CH-GDP -shell) measurements will be performed on OMEGA laser facility.