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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.
Simon C. P. Wang, Delbert E. Day
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 17 | Number 3 | May 1990 | Pages 427-438
Technical Paper | ICF Target | doi.org/10.13182/FST90-A29218
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A technique is described for producing spherical gas bubbles in glass that can be used to make inertial confinement fusion (ICF) targets. A glass rod containing an irregularly shaped hole is heated to a temperature where the glass viscosity is low enough so that surface tension forms a bubble from the hole. Buoyancy forces drive the bubble upward in the glass rod as it becomes increasingly spherical. At the proper time, the rising bubble is decelerated and brought to a gradual stop by increasing the glass viscosity by slowly reducing the temperature. With the present technique, 3- to 6-mm-diam spherical bubbles with a distortion of 0.3% have been produced in Corning 7740 and Schott BK-7 glasses. Glass macroshells can be formed from the bubbles trapped in the glass by grinding the outside surface concentric with the highly spherical inner surface. These glass shells, which possess a high degree of geometrical perfection, should be adequate for ICF targets.