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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.
Katsushi Matsuoka, Makoto Kobayashi, Rie Kurata, Junya Osuo, Naoko Ashikawa, Akio Sagara, Yasuhisa Oya, Kenji Okuno
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 412-416
Materials Development & Plasma-Material Interactions | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12391
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Impurity effects on chemical behavior of energetic deuterium implanted into the carbon-oxygen containing boron films were investigated as a function of impurity concentrations by means of XPS and TDS. This study was carried out for about 40% impurities-containing boron films. It was found that a major chemical state of carbon was C-B bond and that of oxygen was free oxygen for the carbon-oxygen containing boron films. Most of deuterium was trapped by the C-B bond to form a B-C-D bond. On the other hand, free oxygen formed heavy water (D2O) and released as D2O during deuterium implantation. The amount of deuterium trapped by carbon was increased as the carbon concentration increased. However, the deuterium retention for the carbon-oxygen containing boron film with less than 20% carbon was almost twice as high as that for the only about 20% carbon-containing boron films. It was also indicated that the formation of free carbon was refrained due to the existence of free oxygen which induce the increase of C-B bond in about 40% impurities-containing boron films. These results indicate that hydrogen isotopes were trapped as B-C-D bond, which released deuterium at 900 K, in lower carbon concentration as oxygen coexists with carbon in the boron films. It was concluded that impurity concentration should be kept as low as possible to prevent tritium retention in the boron film deposited on the first wall in future fusion devices.