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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.
T.Tanifuji, S. Jitsukawa, S.Nasu, A.Moon, K.Mori, S.Nishikawa, M.Yamanaka, Y.Izawa
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 954-957
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-A22726
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We investigated tritium (T) release behavior from silica glass. The specimens were 8 kinds of commercially available silica glass. T was injected by the 6Li (n,α)T reaction of sintered pellets of lithium oxide (Li2O) into the silica glass with thermal neutrons in JRR-2 (VT-8) up to 5 × 1018 neutrons/cm2 at ambient temperature (about 350 K). After irradiation, the Li2O pellets were removed from the silica glass, and T release from the silica glass was measured in a flow of hydrogen (H2) or ammonia (NH3) sweep gas at atmospheric pressure at a constant heating rate of 2 K/min between 675 K and 1375 K with a proportional counter. In the case of H2 sweep gas, a maximum tritium release rate was observed around 1023 K, while in the case of NH3 sweep gas, two peaks around 1023 K and around 1123 K or a peak around 1123 K with a shoulder were obserbed. After the experiments of T release, FT-IR spectra showed a decrease of SiOH bands at 3650 cm−1. On the other hand, no changes in intensities at 2250 cm−1 due to SiH were observed for both samples before and after T release.
