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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.
W.J. McGann, G. Entine, R.F. Farrell, A. Clapp, M.R. Squillante
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 1041-1046
Measurement of Tritium | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25275
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Low noise silicon avalanche photodiodes (APDs) with ultra thin surface dead layers have been developed for detecting tritium beta particles. Unlike the present windowless proportional counters and liquid scintillation techniques this alternative requires no liquid or flowing gases and has the reliability and compactness of solid-state detector technology. We have carried out detector research to study and optimize the physical and electrical properties of APDs for nuclear spectroscopy. A particular emphasis has been placed on reducing the noise and surface dead layer of large area avalanche photodiodes (1 cm diameter) in order to maximize the quantum efficiency for detecting low energy betas, as well as to investigate the effects of changing temperature, bias, and leakage current on avalanche gain, signal-to-noise and tritium detection quantum efficiency.
