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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.
T. Takamatsu, T. Fujimoto, K. Masuda, K. Yoshikawa
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 1114-1118
Technical Paper | Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1647
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) fusion device has been manufactured as a compact neutron source. This device consists of double jacket chambers to provide sufficient water cooling, having the diameters of inner and outer chambers of, respectively, 20 cm and 30 cm. The effective water-cooling enabled the IEC device to operate at high cathode current of more than 80 mA. A target neutron yield of 1 × 107 has been achieved for cathode voltage of 80 kV and (cathode) current of 80 mA. The water jacket of a 5 cm width was designed as well to assure the sufficient reflection of 2.45 MeV D-D neutrons downward, where a thinner 1 cm thick water jacket is installed at the bottom. This non-uniformity of water jacket thickness resulted in increased neutron flux downward.
