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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.
Kenji Okuno, Shigeru O'hira, Hiroshi Yoshida, Yuji Naruse, Tatsushi Suzuki, Shingo Hirata, Masahiro Misumi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 713-718
Tritium Properties and Interactions with Material | Proceedings of the Third Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology in Fission, Fusion and Isotopic Applications (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 1-6, 1988) | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25218
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental apparatus has been developed to carry out tritium permeation experiments for candidate first-wall materials subjected to a high flux of low energy tritium ions, and installed in a glovebox. The experimental apparatus consists of five main systems; (1) a tritium ion source with energies variable from 20 to 1400 eV, (2) a main chamber system for directing an ion beam onto a heated target and for measuring various implantation-related experimental parameters by means of SIMS and AES, (3) a downstream system for measuring the permeated tritium through the target specimen by means of QMS, (4) a tritium supply and recovery system and (5) evacuation system. Operational tests with the system have yielded deuterium ion-beam with more than 90% deuterons and intensities from 2x1015 D+/cm2s at 200 eV to greater than 3x1015 D+/cm2s at 1000 eV. The energy width of the ion beam was about 10% of the beam energy ranging from 100 to 1400 eV. Baseline pressure as low as 9x10−9 Torr and 1x10−9 Torr have been achieved in the main chamber and downstream system, respectively.
