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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.
Anisia Bornea, Marius Zamfirache, Liviu Stefan, Ioan Stefanescu, Anisoara Preda
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 2 | March 2015 | Pages 266-269
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T7
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Cryogenic distillation is the back-end process used in water detritiation technologies with the aim to separate the hydrogen isotopes and concentrate it for further extraction and storage. At ICIT, research towards cryogenic distillation has been approached to develop the technology for heavy water detritiation at CANDU reactors. These results can be also useful for fusion reactors. ICIT has developed a technology for producing heavy water which was completed through a technological transfer to a heavy water plant. With this technology, ICIT has developed a research program to achieve high efficiency ordered packing for the water distillation process. These packings have been promoted at Cernavoda NPP and now equip the heavy water upgrading installations for the CANDU reactors. The packages for water distillation processes were made of phosphorous bronze, being required a very high wettability. Considering on water distillation process similarity, respectively hydrogen distillation, ICIT has started a research program for the development of similar package made by stainless steel, to be used at cryogenic distillation. This paper presents two types of ICIT packages developed for hydrogen distillation and performance data obtained on laboratory scale. In order to determine the characteristics of the package, the installation was operated in the total reflux mode, for different flow rate for the liquid. There were made several experiments considering different operating conditions.
