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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.
G J Butterworth
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1994-2000
Safety, Recycling, and Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A30014
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For a large-scale fusion energy system the ability to recycle materials removed from reactor service could confer several benefits. Firstly, it could extend the resources of strategic chemical elements, thus enhancing the potential of fusion as a sustainable long term energy source and, secondly, it could reduce the quantities of radioactive waste requiring permanent disposal. A number of preliminary studies have been performed to assess the recycling potential of some candidate reactor materials and particular examples of tritium breeders, low activation steels, vanadium alloys, tungsten and copper are briefly described. In most cases, technically-feasible processing routes can be identified for the recovery and reuse of material in the fusion cycle without the generation of large-volume waste streams.
