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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.
Peter L. Hagelstein
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 23 | Number 3 | May 1993 | Pages 353-361
Technical Notes on Cold Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST93-A30166
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new model describing the transfer of neutrons to and from nuclei embedded in a lattice was recently proposed. The coupling between the nuclei and lattice phonons is now explored, focusing on the question of whether it is possible under any conditions for anomalously large energy transfer to or from the lattice to occur during a neutron transfer reaction. By studying the gamma line shape, no anomalies are expected for a ground-state lattice or for a thermal lattice. Under certain conditions, the frequency of aphonon mode can be shifted significantly in a neutron transfer reaction; phonons initially present in that mode are shifted in frequency during the reaction. This effect produces an anomalous energy shift in the event that the mode is initially strongly excited.