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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.
K.H. Schrader, A. Perujo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 1416-1419
Tritium Storage, Distribution, and Transportation | 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-A30610
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the design and first tests of a portable uranium getter bed where the drawbacks of the standard available transport getters have been either mitigated or eliminated. The heating of the bed is made internally, ie, heating the uranium by a close contact of the heater element with the material, therefore reducing the temperature of the wall that is shielded from the heat source. Keeping the wall relatively cold reduces the tritium losses by permeation and the heat load to the glovebox. With this design the maximum operating temperature of the external wall is ≈ 373 K, this corresponds to a nominal reduction in permeation of four orders of magnitude.