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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.
Arthur Nobile, Heidi Reichert, Roger T. Janezic, David R. Harding, Lance D. Lund, Walter T. Shmayda
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 43 | Number 4 | June 2003 | Pages 522-539
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A299
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Preparations are currently underway at the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics (UR/LLE) to conduct direct drive laser implosion campaigns with inertial confinement fusion targets containing deuterium-tritium (DT) cryogenic ice layers. The OMEGA Cryogenic Target Handling System will fill plastic targets with high-pressure DT (150 MPa) at 300 to 500 K, cool them down to cryogenic temperature (<25 K), form the DT ice layer, and transport the targets to the OMEGA laser target chamber. Targets will then be shot with the 60-beam 30-kJ OMEGA laser. A tritium removal system has been designed to remove tritium from effluents associated with operation of the target chamber and its associated diagnostic antechambers, vacuum pumping systems, and target insertion systems. The design of the target chamber tritium removal system (TCTRS) is based on catalytic oxidation of DT and tritiated methane to tritiated water (DTO), followed by immobilization of DTO on molecular sieves. The design of the TCTRS presented a challenge due to the low tritium release limits dictated by the tritium license at UR/LLE. Aspen Plus, a commercial software package intended for the simulation and design of chemical processing systems operating at steady state, was used to simulate and design the TCTRS. A second commercial software package, Aspen ADSIM, was used to simulate and design the TCTRS molecular sieve beds, which operate at unsteady state. In this paper, we describe the design of the TCTRS and the benefits that were realized by use of the Aspen Plus and Aspen ADSIM software packages.