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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.
O. P. Joneja, M. Rosselet, J. Ligou, P. Gardel
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 4 | November 1995 | Pages 1651-1662
Technical Paper | Blanket Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30432
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recently, heat deposition rate measurements were reported that used a quasi-adiabatic double-shield graphite calorimeter. It was found that for a better understanding of nuclear heating due to incident radiation, having a calorimeter that could be conveniently moved axially and radially inside large material blocks would be advisable. Here, a simpler design, based on three elements, i.e., core, jacket, and shield is conceived. The fabrication and testing details are presented, and the performance of the current calorimeter is compared with a double-shield calorimeter under similar conditions. Such a system is found to be extremely sensitive and can be employed successfully at the LOTUS facility for future nuclear heat deposition rate measurements in large blocks of materials. The current design paves the way for the convenient testing of a large amount of kerma factor data required for constructing future fusion machines. The same configuration with minor changes can be extended to most of the fusion materials of interest. The core of the new calorimeter measures 11 mm in diameter and height and has overall dimensions of 24 mm in diameter and 180 mm in height. The response of the calorimeter is measured by placing it in front of the Haefely neutron generator. The reproducibility of these measurements is found to be better than 2.7% for a dose rate in the range of 30 to 100 cGy/min. The heating rates are found to vary linearly with the neutron source strength.