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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.
Sümer Şahın, Ralph W. Moir, Sabahattin Ünalan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 4 | December 1994 | Pages 1311-1325
Technical Paper | Fusion Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A30316
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A neutron physics analysis of the modified PACER concept was conducted to assess the required liquid zone thickness of which the volume fraction is 25% in the form of Li2BeF4 (Flibe) jets and 75% as void. These liquid jets surround a low-yield nuclear fusion explosive and protect the chamber walls. The neutronic calculations assumed a 30-m-radius underground spherical geometry cavity with a 1-cm-thick stainless steel liner attached to the excavated rock wall. Achievement of tritium breeding ratios of1.05 and LIS requires a Flibe thickness of 1.6 and 2.0 m, respectively, which results in average energy densities of 24 900 and 19085 J/g. Our calculations show that for a Flibe zone thickness > 2.5 m, the activation of the steel liner and rock would be low enough after 30 yr of operation that the cavity would satisfy the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's rules for “shallow burial” upon decommissioning, assuming other sources of radioactivity could be removed or qualified as well. This means that upon decommissioning, the site could essentially be abandoned, or the cavity could be used as a shallow burial site for other qualified materials.