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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.
S. Le Tacon, F. Durut, C. Chicanne, V. Brunet
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 2 | March-April 2013 | Pages 132-135
Technical Paper | Selected papers from 20th Target Fabrication Meeting, May 20-24, 2012, Santa Fe, NM, Guest Editor: Robert C. Cook | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A16330
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Glass thin films appear particularly interesting as semipermeable barriers for many noncryogenic target applications. This functional layer can be sputtered from quartz targets onto CHx microshells synthesized by glow discharge polymerization. In the present work, we investigate the influence of deposit parameters (pressure, RF power, target-holder distance, and plasma composition) on glass coating microstructure and permeation properties. The permeation properties of CHx/SiO2/CHx capsules are studied by mass spectrometry using deuterium (D2) as the filling gas. The use of a low deposition pressure and a high RF power in a background atmosphere of argon appears essential to obtain the most efficient barrier. The optimized sputtering conditions allow deuterium half-lives of 1 month on 1700-m CHx capsules, including a 1-m-thick SiO2 coating (corresponding to a permeation coefficient of 3 × 10-20 molm-1s-1Pa-1). These capsules could be filled to the required pressures ([approximately]3 MPa) for Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) experiments.
