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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.
Y. Yamauchi, Y. Kosaka, Y. Nobuta, T. Hino, K. Nishimura
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 62 | Number 1 | July-August 2012 | Pages 66-70
Hydrogen/Tritium Behavior | Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials, Part A: Fusion Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A14114
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The removal of deuterium retained in boron, titanium, and titanium oxide films by neon glow discharge was investigated. The films were exposed to deuterium glow plasma to retain the deuterium and subsequently exposed to neon glow plasma. The temperature of the exposures was room temperature. The residual deuterium was estimated by thermal desorption spectroscopy. The removal ratio of deuterium by neon glow discharge largely depended on the material. Namely, the ratios for boron, titanium, or titanium oxide were 14%, 2%, or 40%, respectively. The ratios for the boron and the titanium oxide roughly agreed with the estimation from SRIM code calculations, while the ratio for the titanium did not agree with the estimation. These results suggest that the reduction of the deuterium retention is owing to the etching and the ion impact desorption of neon ions in the cases of boron and titanium oxide, and the prompt re-trapping of deuterium by titanium atoms might occur in the case of titanium. The comparison between titanium and titanium oxide clearly shows that the removal effect by glow discharge largely depended on the surface conditions, such as oxygen impurity.
