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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.
Masao Matsuyama, Masanori Hara
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 1 | July 2008 | Pages 182-185
Technical Paper | Tritium Measurement | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1791
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A twin type thermal conduction calorimeter has been specially designed and constructed for absolute measurement of tritium, and then its performance was examined using two kinds of tritium samples, i.e., ZrNi alloy powders loaded with a given amount of tritium. Total amounts of tritium in the ZrNi alloy powders were previously estimated by a small ionization chamber. Changes in radioactivity of two samples were followed for three years, and it was seen that the activity changes obeys the half-life of 4505 days. The initial tritium amounts estimated by the small ionization chamber agreed well with the extrapolated values from the activity changes evaluated by the calorimeter. Namely, it was suggested that the small ionization chamber is able to be used as a secondary standard of the tritium measuring devices. The -ray-induced X-ray counter was also calibrated for non-destructive measurements of high-level tritium by using the present small ionization chamber.