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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.
Yuka Togashi, Masanori Hara
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 4 | November 2011 | Pages 1471-1474
Interaction with Materials | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12709
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To understand the water vapor transport through a polypropylene film at near ambient temperature, water vapor permeation and sorption measurements were carried out using tritiated water as tracer. The activation energy and frequency factor of the permeability were found to be 11 kJ/mol and 1.5 x 10-10 cm3(STP) cm cm-2 s-1 Pa-1, respectively. The corresponding values of the solubility were determined to be -30 kJ/mol and 2.9 x 10-10 cm3(STP) cm-3 Pa-1. Because the permeation can be described by a one-dimensional diffusion model, the diffusion coefficient was evaluated from the quotient of permeability and solubility. The activation energy of water diffusion through polypropylene was calculated to be 41 kJ/mol.
