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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.
A. Lodato, M. Rödig, R. Duwe, H. Derz, J. Linke, R. Castro, A. Gervash
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 38 | Number 3 | November 2000 | Pages 334-337
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Beryllium Technology for Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST00-A36147
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Beside carbon materials and tungsten, beryllium will play an important role as plasma facing material (PFM) in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). It will mainly be used for the primary wall, the limiter and the upper baffle. During off normal operation the surface of Be may be loaded by severe thermal shocks, caused by plasma disruptions with energies of several ten MJ/m2 within tens of milliseconds. The influence of high heat fluxes on several un-irradiated Be grade have been investigated before. During the operation of ITER the material will suffer irradiation with 14 MeV neutrons generated in the fusion process. In order to study the material degradation caused by fast neutrons, different samples have been neutron irradiated in the High Flux Reactor (HFR) at Petten. The thermal shock behaviour of the different beryllium grade before and after neutron irradiation is now compared.
