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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.
G.A. Esteban, F. Legarda, L.A. Sedano, A. Perujo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 948-953
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-A22725
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An accurate and particular description of isotope effects in hydrogen transport within structural martensitic steels is highly needed in nuclear fusion technology in order to describe the tritium-material interaction on the basis of the properties of the non-radioactive hydrogen isotopes (protium and deuterium). As a result, tritium transport investigation becomes technologically more feasible because a cost-effective radioactive device is not mandatory. Additionally, a precise isotopic description allows differentiating the behaviour of the fuel-components deuterium and tritium within the blanket structures in reactor operation conditions. A time-dependent gas-phase isovolumetric desorption technique has been used to evaluate the isotopic effects in the diffusive transport parameters of hydrogen in an 8% CrWVTa reduced activation martensitic steel in the temperatures range 423 to 892 K and driving pressures from 4·104 to 1·105 Pa. Experiments have been run with both protium and deuterium obtaining their respective transport parameters diffusivity (D), Sieverts' constant (Ks), permeability (Φ), the trap site density (ηt) and the trapping activation energy (Et).
