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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.
E. T. Cheng, C. P. C. Wong Ga
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 1 | July 1983 | Pages 164-169
Technical Paper | Nonelectrial Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22782
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A scoping study was performed to explore tritium breeding and energy-temperature splits in various blanket concepts for high-temperature process heat. Temperature limits for the lithium materials necessitate two blanket zones. One delivers heat at moderate temperatures (≾600°C) and breeds tritium. The other is a nonbreeding zone that produces heat at high temperatures. We find that a system where all blanket modules breed tritium delivers more high-temperature heat than one where only some of the blanket modules produce tritium. Of those considered, a design where the high-temperature zone is placed between two breeding zones produces the highest fraction of high-temperature heat. When liquid lithium, Li7Pb2 and Li2O tritium breeding materials are employed with two breeding zones, a tritium breeding ratio of 1.1 can be achieved while delivering 30 to 40% of the blanket heat at high temperature.
