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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. Kakuta, S. Hirata, S. Mori, S. Konishi, Y. Kawamura, M. Nishi, Y. Ohara
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 1069-1073
Blanket Material and Process | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22748
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this design work, a combination of the hydrogen pumps in charge of the function of hydrogen isotopes recovery and the oxygen pump was adopted to the blanket tritium recovery system for the prototype fusion reactor designed by Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI). The main functions of this system are described below. 1) Transport of tritium with helium purge gas: tritium released from ceramic breeding material in the blanket is transported to the tritium recovery system by the helium purge gas which contains a small amount of hydrogen gas. 2) Steam electrolysis and removal of oxygen gas: the oxygen pump with electrolyte of oxygen ionic conductors electrolyzes the steam (H2O and HTO) contained in the puige gas into hydrogen isotopes and oxygen, and simultaneously removes impurity of oxygen by electrical membrane permeation. 3) Recovery of hydrogen isotopes: the hydrogen pump with electrolyte of protonic conductors electrically recovers the pure hydrogen isotopes (HT and H2) from the purge gas. Based on the experimental data obtained by feasibility study and the present design effort, it was revealed that the simple and continuous tritium recovery system for gaseous stream is possible and attractive for fusion power reactors.
