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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.
K. Katayama, T. Okamura, K. Imaoka, M. Sasaki, Y. Uchida, M. Nishikawa, S. Fukada
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 3 | October 2007 | Pages 640-644
Technical Paper | First Wall, Blanket, and Shield | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1561
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Carbon based material and tungsten are used in ITER as plasma facing materials in the divertor region. Presumably, carbon-tungsten mixed materials will be formed on the surface of the inner components of the vacuum vessel. Therefore, it is necessary to understand incorporation phenomena of hydrogen into carbon-tungsten mixed materials. In this study, carbon-tungsten co-deposition layers were formed by sputtering method using hydrogen RF plasma. Hydrogen incorporation was investigated as a function of atomic ratio of carbon and tungsten contained in the layer. The obtained hydrogen retention was in the range between 0.16 and 0.83 as H/(C+W). The carbon ratio dependence on hydrogen incorporation was not observed. It was found that the release behavior of the incorporated hydrogen changes depending on the atomic ratio of C and W in the layer.