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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.
J. F. Hund, J. W. Crippen, K. Clark, N. Martinez, D. J. Jasion, M. P. Farrell, D. T. Frey
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 2 | March-April 2013 | Pages 252-256
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-A16346
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The National Ignition Campaign (NIC) target consists of precisely machined and assembled components. A subset of the components of this target is the aluminum shielding around the silicon support and cooling arms, which is designed to alleviate harmful unconverted light reflecting from the arms into the laser optics. This NIC target shielding consists of two external shields and four inner shields located between the arms. Recently, we have developed a process to add a plastic coating to the shields with precisely defined edges that can survive pressing the part into a three-dimensional shape. After this process was demonstrated on prototypes, it was further refined to improve yield and is currently being used to fabricate and deliver parts for NIC experiments on a regular basis. The final process that we developed consists of seven steps to fabricate these shields: (1) applying a photolithographed plastic layer to electrically isolate the shields from the electrical traces on the cooling arms, (2) plasma etching to improve adhesion during the subsequent aluminum coating, (3) large-batch electron-beam aluminum coating, (4) laser cutting and custom die cutting to various shapes and specified patterns, (5) utilizing heat pressing techniques that soften the plastic coating enough to be coined into a three-dimensional shape, (6) accurate positioning and bonding of Mylar liners under the tops of the shields, and (7) final characterization. Through these process steps high process yields were achieved against the rigorous NIC requirements.