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Latest News
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.
Edmund Storms, Carol Talcott-Storms
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 20 | Number 2 | September 1991 | Pages 246-257
Technical Note on Cold Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29696
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The behavior of tritium released from a contaminated palladium cathode is determined and compared with the pattern found in cells claimed to produce tritium by a cold fusion reaction. Void space is produced in palladium when it is subjected to hydrogen absorption and desorption cycles. This void space can produce channels through which hydrogen can be lost from the cathode, thereby reducing the hydrogen concentration. This effect is influenced, in part, by impurities, the shape of the electrode, the charging rate, the concentration of hydrogen achieved, and the length of time the maximum concentration is present.
