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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.
A.V.Golubev, T.A.Kosheleva, Kris Surano, L.F.Belovodsky, V.F.Kuznetsova, William Hoppes, V.N.Golubeva, S.V.Mavrin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 409-412
Biology | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22621
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
It is known that lichens are used for assessment of atmosphere pollution by heavy metals, radioniclides, sulfur and nitrogen oxides, etc. However there were published in scientific literature only limited data on usage of lichens as bio-indicators of tritium1,2. There are presented in the paper the results of lichen application study for assessment of atmospheric pollution by tritium. Both tritium in tissue free water (TFWT) and organically bound tritium (OBT) were measured in lichen. Lichen species Hypogimnia physodes was used as a basic bioindicator. Pieces of lichen were sampled within the distance of 30 km of emission source. Established sampling sites were rectangular in shape with linear dimensions 100*100 m. Lichen samples were sampled from various trees: birch tree, aspen tree, pine tree and linden tree at the level of 1.5 m above the ground. Thermal vacuum desorption technique was used to extract TFWT from lichen samples. Pyrolitic oxidation of dried lichen samples by vanadium oxide was used to extract tritium from OBT. Air monitoring stations equipped with active and passive samplers were used to sample HT and HTO from the atmosphere. Liquid scintillation counting was used to measure tritium content in water samples. It was determined that tritium content in lichen samples (both in TFWT and OBT) in vicinity of an emission source is higher than that of tritium content in lichen at distant sampling sites. Variation of tritium activity of TFWT was about 10 times, variation of tritium activity in OBT was about 70 times. It was supposed that tritium content in TFWT was in equilibrium with tritium content in atmosphere at the minute of sampling, while tritium content in OBT was determined by tritium content in atmosphere over longer period of time.
