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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.
D. R. Hanchar, M. S. Kazimi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 395-400
Tritium | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22896
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A transient tritium permeation model is developed based on a simplified conceptual DT-fueled fusion reactor design. The major design features in the model are a solid breeder blanket, a low pressure purge gas in the blanket and a high pressure helium primary coolant. Tritium inventory in the breeder is due to diffusive hold-up and solubility effects. Diffusive hold-up is assumed to be the dominant factor in order to separate the solution for the breeder tritium concentration. The model was applied to the STARFIRE-Interim Reference Design, whose system parameters yielded a breeder tritium inventory on the order of grams. The breeder pellets (average radius, 10−3 cm) reach their steady-state tritium content in approximately 4 hours from startup, assuming continuous full power operation. Both the steady-state breeder tritium concentration and the time to reach that steady-state are proportional to the square of the pellet radius.