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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. Chêne, P. Trabuc, O. Gastaldi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 510-514
Technical Paper | Materials Interactions | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1865
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The behavior of hydrogen and its isotopes in materials is a major concern in future nuclear systems both for the predictive analysis of the role of H, D, T in the environmental degradation of structural materials, for the confinement and inventory of tritium, and for the management of tritiated wastes.This study is focused on the characterization of the effect of the alloy microstructure, of desorption anneal and of oxide films on the tritium behavior (desorption kinetics, trapping, residual concentration) in various austenitic stainless steels.Different techniques (high temperature extraction of hydrogen, beta counting of tritium in massive samples) were used to study : the tritium absorption and desorption in several stainless steels, the role of the annealing conditions (temperature/time) on the tritium residual concentration and desorption flow, and the role of microstructural defects and of oxide films on the diffusion and trapping of tritium.
