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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.
Lev F. Belovodskii, Viktor K. Gaevoy, Aleksei V. Golubev
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 470-478
Plenary Session | Proceedings of the Fifth Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology in Fission, Fusion, and Isotopic Applications Belgirate, Italy May 28-June 3, 1995 | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30448
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Physical and chemical properties of tritium (T) and its oxides (T2O, DTO, HTO) were experimentally researched; hence, the following was identified: T to T2O conversion mechanisms due to radiation oxidation and isotope exchange in the T concentration range from 10E-8 to 600 Ci/1 in gaseous media of technological equipment (air, argon, hydrogen and their mixtures); diffusion, solubility, sorption and desorption constants of T and T2O in interaction process with structural materials of technological equipment (metals, polymers); properties of T oxidation catalysts (Pt, Pd, Ni, CuO, PdO) for various gas mixtures; properties of moisture adsorbents: synthetic molecular sieve, alumogel and silica gel at different T2O specific activity; mechanisms of waste formation: gaseous, liquid, solid - when T is operated on. Based on the accomplished research the following was developed: technical requirements to technological equipment and equipment units: boxes, containers, receivers, appliances; methods and devices to extract T and T2O from gases: absorbing elements, filters, gas cleaners; facilities for safe T storage in T2O adsorbed on sieve NaA with helium-3 extraction; technologies and devices to extract T and T2O from solid wastes as well as for liquid waste solidification. The developments implemented in the T items production have reduced personnel exposure doses by∼ 50 times and T-releases to the environment by∼200 times.
