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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.
R. A. Anderl, R. J. Pawelko, G. R. Smolik, F. Scaffidi-Argentina, D. Davydov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 38 | Number 3 | November 2000 | Pages 283-289
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Beryllium Technology for Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST00-A36141
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper reports the results of chemical reactivity experiments for Be pebbles (2-mm and 0.2-mm diameter) and Be powder (14–31 μm diameter) exposed to steam at elevated temperatures, 350 to 900°C for pebbles and 400 to 500°C for powders. We measured BET specific surface areas of 0.12 m2/g for 2-mm pebbles, 0.24 m2/g for 0.2-mm pebbles and 0.66 to 1.21 m2/g for Be powder samples. These experiments showed a complex reactivity behavior for the material, dependent primarily on the test temperature. Average H2 generation rates for powder samples, based on measured BET surface areas, were in good agreement with previous measurements for fully-dense CPM-Be. Rates for the Be pebbles, based on measured BET surface areas, were systematically lower than the CPM-Be rates, possibly because of different surface and bulk features for the pebbles, especially surface-layer impurities, that contribute to the measured BET surface area and influence the oxidation process at the material surface.
