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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.
A. Kumar, M.A. Abdou, Y. Ikeda, T. Nakamura
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 1909-1918
Neutronic | Proceedings of the Ninth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Oak Brook, Illinois, October 7-11, 1990) | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29621
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The selection of materials and design options for fusion device components depends crucially on the level of radioactivity and decayheat induced in the components subject to D-T neutron irradiation. An experimental program was carried out to obtain decay γ emission spectra from samples of Fe, Ni, Cr, MnCu alloy, Ti, Mo, Zr, Ta, W, Si, Mg, Al, V, Nb, SS316, YBa2Cu3O7 and ErBa2Cu3O7, which were subjected to simulated fusion neutron environment. Cooling times obtained ranged from 10 min to 7 days. The experimental results have been analyzed using four leading radioactivity codes: DKRICF, REAC, RACC and THIDA. The integrated decay γ emission rates (over 100 KeV to 3 MeV) have been compared in addition to decay γ emission spectra. It is observed that : (i) generally, much better agreement is found between computed (C) and experimentally measured (E) values for integrated γ emission rates as against the detailed γ spectra, (ii) C/E ratios for integrated γ emission rates are found to range from 0.001 to 300, though most of the ratios cluster between 1 to 2. Significant discrepancies are obtained on C/E ratios for a number of cases for the four codes used above. Most of the observed discrepancies are due to (a) missing or wrong fundamental decay γ-ray data, e.g., (1) missing decay data in DKRICF for 186Ta, 187W, 181W, 90mY, 86Rb, 88Y, etc., (2) wrong decay γ-intensities for W products in THIDA, (b) inaccurate activation cross sections, e.g., for V, Zr, Mo in DKRICF, RACC, REAC, (c) errors on computed neutron energy spectra, (d) various experiment related factors, essentially poor counting statistics for weak neutron induced reactions.
