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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 Lupo, J L Hemmerich, R Lässer, J Yorkshades, J L Salanave
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 1347-1352
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-A30599
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Impurity Processing (IP) system is designed to recover tritium from tritiated compounds (Q2O, CxQy, NQ3, with Q = H, D, T and x>=1, y>=4) collected from the JET torus or generated during the processing of gases inside the Active Gas Handling System (AGHS). The recovery process involves dilution of the impurities in helium, addition of oxygen, recirculation of the helium-impurities-oxygen mixture over a hot recombiner (773K) to generate water and CO2, and trapping of the water on 160K cold surfaces. The remaining gas species He, CO2, O2, N2 (with a very small tritium concentration) are transferred finally to the Exhaust Detritiation (ED) system for further reduction of the tritium concentration by at least a factor of 1000. The cold trap is heated (473K) and the water vapour passed over two hot iron beds at 823K to “crack” the water. The recovered hydrogen isotopes are stored in cold uranium beds (U-beds) for further processing in AGHS.
