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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.
Qi Xu, T. Nagasaka, T. Muroga
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 3 | October 2007 | Pages 609-612
Technical Paper | First Wall, Blanket, and Shield | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1555
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fe-Cr-W based low activation ferritic steels are widely regarded as promising blanket structural materials for fusion reactors, while liquid lithium breeder/coolant concept provides an attractive option for high efficiency and simplicity of blanket system. However, past compatibility tests of ferritic steels with liquid lithium were almost limited to conventional Fe-Cr-Mo steels. In this study, the corrosion behavior of the candidate reduced activation ferritic steel, JLF-1(Fe-9Cr-2W-0.1C) in lithium was investigated. Static immersion tests were carried out using coupon specimens (16 × 4 × 0.25 mm) at 873K and 973K for 100hr. At 973K, the phase transformation from martensite to ferrite resulted in decrease in hardness from 250 to 140Hv. This seemed to be caused by depletion of C. Examinations of binary Fe-Cr and pure iron were also carried out for comparison with JLF-1.
