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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.
Xiaohua Cao, Benfu Yang, Huajin Tan, Jingping Wan, Changyong Jiang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 892-896
Material Interaction and Permeation | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22713
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The adsorption and desorption behaviors of tritium on the surfaces of stainless steel, copper, molybdenum and Kovar were studied. After the exposure in tritium gas ( 9 kPa gaseous tritium, 2 minutes exposure at 873 K and 40 minutes cooling ), the tritium desorbed at room temperature and during heating up to 1123 K and total sorbed tritium of the samples were measured. The results showed that the desorbed tritium at room temperature was only 1∼6% of total sorbed tritium and its amount order was: Kovar >copper > stainless steel > molybdenum. The total desorbed tritium was ranging from 2 to 22 MBq/cm2, the largest is for Kovar and the smallest is for stainless steel. The tritium released from these materials at room temperature and during heating was mostly in the form of HTO. The thermo-desorption spectra of these materials were obtained. It was found that at least 5, 3, 3, 4 sorption states of tritium exist in the exposed Kovar, molybdenum, copper and stainless steel samples respectively. Doping 1% hydrogen in the carrying gas of helium during the thermo-desorption had rather effect on this process.
