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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.
R.A. Surette, R.G.C. McElroy
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 14 | Number 2 | September 1988 | Pages 1141-1146
Tritium Safety | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This presentation describes some experiments to investigate the removal, regrowth and evolution of tritium from stainless steel planchets that had been exposed to elemental tritium. The total tritium sorbed onto and into a planchet was measured by heating the planchet and collecting the evolved tritium. The removable surface activity was determined from swipe measurements. The evolution of tritium from the planchets was determined by leaving some of the planchets exposed to air for almost one year and then measuring the tritium remaining. The swipe experiments indicate that a removal efficiency of 10% is representative but usually conservative for an undisturbed surface. In general, the fraction of activity that is removable is dependent on the surface history. If a cleaned surface is left undisturbed for a few days removable surface activity may regrow. If the surface is left undisturbed for a long period of time (months) some of the tritium in the planchet will be lost to the atmosphere.
