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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.
Massimo Zucchetti
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 2 | August 2011 | Pages 743-747
Nuclear Analysis & Experiments | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12474
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The features of Candor, a study of a compact high-magnetic field tokamak, based on advanced fuel cycle have been examined from a neutronics viewpoint. Activation behaviour, focusing on the Clearance Index of materials after service in a Deuterium-Helium-3 advanced fuel fusion experiment has been investigated, showing the possibility of being declassified to nonradioactive material (clearance) after their irradiation in the reactor plasma chamber wall, if a sufficient (55-70 y) interim cooling time is allotted. AISI 316L, on the contrary, suffers the presence of Ni, N, Nb and Mo. Concerning pure elements, it is of particular interest the high Clearance Index of Copper and the moderate one of Fe.
