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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.
M.I. Balonov, G. Ya. Bruk, T.V. Zhesko
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 809-813
Tritium Safety | 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-A30504
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Specific features of metabolism of different classes of tritium compounds have been studied in experiments with rats and mice. The results indicated the value of intracellular content of water is by 15–40% less than the average content of water in the whole tissue. Protracted retention in lungs of particles of luminous compounds and Ti tritide inhalated or introduced into trachea was shown. So, the particles are assigned to class Y according to ICRP. Foreign low-molecular organic tritium compounds are effectively excreted with urine. Biogenic tritium compounds are bound in tissues at synthesis of biopolymers in dependence on need of body in them. According to our experiments, 1 to 90 % of tritium is separated from all incorporated compounds into body water in the form of HTO. The obtained metabolic data along with results of new radiobiological experiments on mice for RBE and biogenic tritium compounds effectiveness were the basis for development and introduction in Russia of standards for insoluble and biogenic tritium compounds and separately - for labelled precursors of nucleic acids.