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Latest News
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.
E. R. Hager, J. R. Lindgren, D. W. Graumann, M. G. Dunlap
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 968-973
Blanket and First-Wall Engineering | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40159
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A lithium blanket module (LBM), representative of a fusion reactor blanket module has been fabricated by GA Technologies Inc. via sub contract from Princeton Plasma Physics Lab under the sponsorship of the Electric Power Research Institute. The LBM consists of a cubical array of 92 cylindrical breeder rods, 2.54 cm in diameter. Each rod consists of an ∼59 cm long section of lithium oxide pellets clad in 0.03 cm wall Type 316 stainless steel tube followed by a 20 cm long stainless steel reflector rod. Reusable test rods in the 20 cm diameter central region incorporate activation foils for neutron dosimetry and aluminum clad pellets for tritium dosimetry. The breeder rods are contained in an enclosure structure which has provisions for insertion and removal of test rods and dosimeter wires. Procedures developed for fabrication and assembly of the rods and enclosure structure proved to be satisfactory and reliable and the work was done on schedule and within budget.
