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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.
Robert J. Kurzeja, Charles E. Murphy Jr., Robert W. Taylor
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 1111-1114
Tritium Safety | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25287
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An unplanned release of 168,000 Ci of elemental tritium (HT) and 4700 Ci of tritium oxide (HTO) occurred on July 31, 1987 from the Savannah River Plant. The oxide fraction in the exhaust stack was determined to be 2.7%. The air concentrations of HT and HTO were also measured at 43 downwind locations. The oxide fraction varied between 2 and 3% at the plant boundary (12 miles downwind) and between 0.3% and 84% at greater downwind distances (15 to 40 miles). The increased variability of the oxide fraction with downwind distance is attributed to exchange of oxide with surface vegetation and to turbulent transfer between the surface and the boundary layer. These results are relevant to a recent study of HT oxidation based on downwind changes in the HT/HTO ratio (Bardolle, 1981).
