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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.
Kyuichi Yasui
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 22 | Number 3 | November 1992 | Pages 400-406
Technical Note on Cold Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A30100
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fractofusion mechanism of coldfusion is investigated theoretically. The conditions necessary for fractofusion during the absorption of deuterium atoms by palladium specimens (the condition of so-called coldfusion experiments) is clarified, including crack generation at grain boundaries, the high orientation angle of grains, rapid crack formation, the increase of electrical resistance around a crack, the large width of cracks, and the generation of many cracks. The origin and quantity of the electrical field inside cracks in the conductor are clarified also. By the fractofusion mechanism, the experimental facts that neutron emissions are observed in bursts, that sometimes they coincide with the deformation of a palladium specimen, and that in many experiments excess neutrons were not observed are qualitatively explained. The upper limit of the total fractofusion yields during the absorption of deuterium atoms by palladium specimens are estimated. The upper limit of the total yield increases to 7 × 106/cm3 palladium as the grain size increases to 1 mm. This value is larger than those observed in many experiments. It indicates that the experiments can be explained by the fractofusion mechanism.