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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.
Johann L. Hemmerich
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 24 | Number 2 | September 1993 | Pages 137-144
Technical Paper | Tritium System | doi.org/10.13182/FST93-A30219
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The most common basic process of air detritiation, which employs oxidation of tritiated gases in a catalytic recombiner and subsequent collection ofHTO on molecular sieve dryers, can also be used for a large-scale detritiation system for the next-step deuterium-tritium fusion device. Performance, economy, and reliability can be improved by modifying the design of basic elements, i.e., the recombiners and molecular sieve dryers, and by rearranging them in a system permitting multiple process path choices for optimum performance depending on demand. These improvements should result in a system that is (a) free of secondary tritium release by permeation; (b) economical, with <1 kW power required in a ready-to-operate “hot standby” condition; (c) capable of reducing inlet humidity of the order of 10000 ppm (volume) to 0.01 ppm at the outlet by using two adsorber stages in series; and (d) capable of providing the best starting condition for water processing: little or no dilution by H2O from isotopic swamping due to the use of two adsorber stages. The system detritiation factor is defined and discussed, and the overriding importance of high water retention efficiency is demonstrated.