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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.
Kenneth V. Salazar, Stevan G. Pattillo, Mitchell Trkula
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 38 | Number 1 | July 2000 | Pages 69-73
Technical Paper | Thirteenth Target Fabrication Specialists’ Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST00-A36119
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Capsules with beryllium ablators are very important targets for the DOE National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser in the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program. Two leading candidates for fabricating beryllium capsules are the machining and bonding of hemispheres, and physical vapor deposition of beryllium onto plastic or other shells. An attractive possibility would be to coat a spherical mandrel with a thin layer of beryllium by a non-line-of-sight process. This coating could be applied via the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of beryllium. Our first attempt at coating beryllium via CVD was done by using bis(cyclopentadienyl)beryllium, (C5H5)2Be, as the precursor material. Results obtained by use of (C5H5)2Be as the precursor material is discussed. However, difficulties we encountered with use of the (C5H5)2Be precursor material led us to examine a relatively unexplored area of beryllium chemistry, namely that of its amines. This redirection also led us to change surrogate material for use in the developmental work.
