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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.
Terry Kammash, David L. Galbraith
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 16 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 469-473
Technical Paper | Special Section: Cold Fusion Technical Notes / Tritium System | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A29109
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two schemes have been proposed to replace the aging tritium production facilities at Savannah River, South Carolina. The reactors at that site have been operating for well over a quarter of a century, producing tritium for national defense programs. But serious questions regarding safety and other issues have arisen. The U.S. Department of Energy and the federal government have reiterated their plan to build a heavy water reactor and a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor at a cost of about $7 billion as replacements for the Savannah River facility. A group of scientists from national laboratories, on the other hand, have proposed the use of a linear accelerator to accelerate protons to produce neutrons to be used to produce tritium in lithium targets. They contend that the capital cost of this accelerator tritium producer is competitive with that of the reactors, but the operating cost may be high unless it is located in a region where the cost of hydropower is low. Yet another scheme is proposed that is safe and potentially less expensive than the other two. It relies on existing or rapidly developing laser technology to drive a magnetically insulated inertial confinement fusion device, which has already produced copious amounts of neutrons that could readily be used in producing tritium.