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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.
Beate Bornschein, Uwe Besserer, Markus Steidl, Michael Sturm, Kathrin Valerius, Jürgen Wendel, KATRIN Collaboration
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 3 | April 2017 | Pages 231-235
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2016.1273703
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
By an international collaboration the KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment KATRIN is currently being installed and commissioned at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the site selection that makes sure of the unique expertise and infrastructure of Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK). KATRIN requires a strong windowless gaseous source of almost pure molecular tritium (95%) and a throughput of 40 g tritium (1.5·1016 Bq) per day, stabilized to the 0.1% level. Since the last large components have been delivered in summer 2015, the collaboration is now focusing on the commissioning of the whole KATRIN experiment. A particular challenge is the commissioning with tritium, which will mark the point of no return regarding the contamination of the large magnet cryostats and tritium loop components. We have developed a 5-phase plan that covers all necessary work to be done for the safe and reliable standard tritium operation of KATRIN.
