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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.
Massimo Zucchetti
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 852-856
Advanced Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29451
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Three types of fusion reactors, based on DT, DD and DHe fuel cycles, are compared from the first wall neutron-induced radioactivity point of view. Some of the definitions of low-activity, based on hands-on recycling, remote recycling, “U.S.” shallow land burial and deep geological confinement waste management criteria, are discussed. A three-classes rank of low-activity is proposed. The analysis of the induced radioactivity in first-wall steels shows that the long-term activity remains at high levels in DD and DHe cases too. DD and DT first-wall steels can be classified in none of the above-mentioned low-activity classes. Neutron induced radioactivity in some of the main constituting elements for the first-wall varies, when turning from DT to DD or DHe irradiation conditions. This depends on the different ways by which the long-lived radioactive nuclides are produced. Materials selection and low-activation alloys development, in order to minimize activity, will be necessary also for the first walls of fusion reactors based on advanced fuel cycles.