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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.
Kan Ashida, Masao Matsuyama, Kuniaki Watanabe
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 735-740
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-A25222
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Graphite is the primary candidate for the first wall of magnetically confined fusion devices. For this application, it is important to know the surface properties and trap/release behavior of hydrogen isotopes to understand fuel recycling/inventory in the graphite first wall. The surface analysis of as-received graphite revealed that the inherent hydrogen content is larger in isotropic compared to the anisotropic graphite. This is due to the presence of non-graphitized carbon atoms in the isotropic graphite which act as the trapping sites of hydrogen atoms. Ion bombardment causes the reduction of the crystallite size of graphite (damage modification), leading to amorphous-like structure. The thermal desorption spectra of hydrogen isotopes consisted of three desorption peaks for the modified graphite. The desorption mechanisms and parameters of three peaks are determined. These parameters were used to estimate the fuel inventory in the graphite.
