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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.
G. Paquignon, D. Brisset, V. Lamaison, J. Manzagol, P. Bonnay, E. Bouleau, D. Chatain, D. Communal, J-P. Perin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 4 | May 2007 | Pages 764-768
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1475
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Laser Megajoule (LMJ) Cryotarget Positioner (PCC) will be used to set cryogenic targets in the vacuum chamber centre of this experimental facility for fusion by inertial confinement. In the French concept, only the targets will be transferred at cryogenic temperature to the PCC, using a Cryotarget Transfer Unit (UTCC). Some of the specifications are very ambitious. Indeed, the targets must be transferred automatically between those cryorobots, at a temperature between 20 K and 29 K. Then, they have to be cooled carefully by the PCC to the triple point (TP) of deuterium-tritium mixture at a rate of 0.5 mK/min. Just below the TP they have to be regulated with an accuracy of +/- 2 mK. Eventually, the DT mixture has to be set 1.5 K below the TP.Scale one prototypes of the cryostats have been built at the Low Temperature Laboratory (SBT) in CEA-Grenoble, France, to deal with specific issues: cryogenic contact resistances, fine cryogenic temperature regulation, test of the feasibility of various thermodynamic paths, 6 degrees of freedom robot positioner, vision control of the transfer and automation. This paper presents the results obtained with these prototypes regarding topics specific to cryogenic transfers, followed by very fine regulation of temperature around 20 K and by dynamic quenching just before the laser shot.
