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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.
A. G. Lipson, B. F. Lyakhov, A. S. Roussetski, T. Akimoto, T. Mizuno, N. Asami, R. Shimada, S. Miyashita, A. Takahashi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 38 | Number 2 | September 2000 | Pages 238-252
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST00-A145
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Low-intensity nuclear emissions (neutrons and charged particles) due to exothermic deuterium desorption from Au/Pd/PdO heterostructure loaded with deuterium by electrolysis have been studied by NE213 neutron detection as well as SSB and CR-39 charged-particle detectors in low-background conditions with large statistics. Similar measurements were performed with the Au/Pd/PdO:H heterostructure as a control. It has been established that in experiments with the Au/Pd/PdO:D system, the excessive 2.45-MeV neutrons and 3.0-MeV protons are better detected than with the Au/Pd/PdO:H system, where those detection rates for n and p did not exceed the cosmic background level. The levels of neutron and proton emissions for 40- to 60-m-thick samples are found to be close to one another and after subtracting background (Au/Pd/PdO:H count rate) consist of In = (19 ± 2)10-3 n/s and Ip = (4.0 ± 1.0)10-3 p/s in a 4 solid angle, respectively. These yields of D-D reaction products in Au/Pd/PdO heterostructure comply with the mean D-D reaction rate of dd ~ 10-23s-1 per D-D pair.
