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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.
C. Fagan, M. Sharpe, W. T. Shmayda, W. U. Schröder
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 3 | April 2017 | Pages 275-280
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1293456
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The concentration of tritium in the adsorbed water layer on stainless-steel type 316 is notably higher than that present in the metal lattice. The absorbed waters play a key role in the migration of tritium into the metal. In this work, stainless-steel (type 316) surfaces were subjected to various pretreatments designed to alter the surface in order to probe the relation between surface conditions and total tritium inventories. These pretreatments included electropolishing and soaking in nitric-acid baths. Stainless-steel samples were loaded with tritium by exposure to a deuterium–tritium gas mixture at 25°C for 24 h. Total tritium inventories were measured using temperature-programmed desorption. The thermal desorption data show a reduction of 65% in total tritium inventory by electropolishing stainless-steel surfaces as compared to unmodified samples. It is also shown that treating the surfaces with nitric acid resulted in an increase in the tritium content by ~200%.
