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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.
I. Cristescu, I. R. Cristescu, L. Dörr, M. Glugla, D. Murdoch
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 3 | October 2007 | Pages 667-671
Technical Paper | The Technology of Fusion Energy - Tritium, Safety, and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1565
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One of the main concerns related to licensing of ITER is the amount of potentially tritium release into the environment and the qualification of the barriers against tritium release. The final barrier of tritium release from fuel cycle is the Water Detritiation System (WDS) which will be operated in combination with the Isotope Separation System (ISS). To investigate the performances of various components of these systems, an experimental facility based on Combined Electrolysis Catalytic Exchange (CECE) process with a Cryogenic Distillation (CD) process was built at Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe. The investigations are focused on two main issues: to quantify the separation performances of deuterium and tritium within the Liquid Phase Catalytic Exchange (LPCE) and CD processes in steady state and in dynamic mode of operation and to develop an integrated control system to be used in ITER ISS, in order to minimize the tritium inventory and to reduce at maximum extent the tritium releases. At TLK the two systems, CECE and CD have been commissioned and the experimental program and preliminary functionality tests of the main components are presented.
