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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.
J.P. Krasznai, S. Smith, R.E. Massey, L. Rodrigo, P. Agg, J.M. Miller
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 1342-1346
Design, Operation, and Maintenance of Tritium System | 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-A30598
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
When organic materials are exposed to elemental tritium, the hydrocarbons incorporate the tritium as a result of radiation induced reactions. The use of oil based vacuum pumps in tritium service gives rise to waste oil which contains, in addition to significant amounts of dissolved HT and HTO, a complex mixture of dissolved hydrocarbon species with a wide range of volatilities. The behaviour of these species in the human body is not as well understood, and consequently, reliable dosimetry models only exist for the two most common tritiated species, HT and HTO. A quantitative radio-gas chromatography technique was developed to analyse the head space above waste vacuum pump oils. The technique was then applied at the Darlington Tritium Removal Facility (TRF) to assess the tritium exposure to personnel changing the oil from one of the high tritium cold boxes.
