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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.
M. Theobald, O. Legaie, P. Baclet, A. Nikroo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 238-241
Technical Paper | Fourteenth Target Fabrication Specialists' Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A17906
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) is the nominal ablator to be used in French inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. These capsules, containing the deuterium-tritium mixture, are developed for the LIL (Laser Integration Line) and the future Megajoule laser (LMJ) of the CEA. Coatings are prepared by glow discharge polymerization (GDP) with trans-2-butene and hydrogen. The films properties have been investigated. Laser fusion targets must have optimized characteristics : a diameter of about 1 mm for LIL targets and about 2.4 mm for LMJ targets, a thickness up to 175 μm, an outer and an inner roughness lower than 20 nm at high modes, a sphericity and a thickness concentricity better than 99%. This paper presents the first microshells obtained at the CEA with a GDP (Glow Discharge Polymerization) coater. Amorphous hydrogenated carbon shells of 175 μm with 1 mm or 2.4 mm diameter have been successfully prepared. The measured roughness at high modes is lower than 10 nm for a 30×30 μm characterization window.
