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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
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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.
CH. Adelhelm, H.U. Borgstedt, J. Konys
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 541-545
Material Engineering — Behavior | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40095
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The application of vanadium alloys as structural materials for the first wall or blanket of a fusion reactor will depend strongly on their compatibility with the coolants and breeding materials included in the blanket system. In the case of the use of liquid alkali metals, lithium offers the advantage of being an excellent heat transfer fluid as well as an excellent breeder of tritium. For the studies of the corrosion behaviour of V 3Ti 1Si in flowing lithium, a pumped lithium loop was designed and constructed. The results gained so far indicate that this vanadium alloy is, from the point of view of compatibility with liquid lithium up to 823 K, a promising material for the application in fusion reactor technology.
