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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.
Melissa Golyski
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 3 | April 2017 | Pages 422-425
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1293413
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The high contamination potential of the release of radioactive tritium facilitates the demand for and development of a stringent and comprehensive approach to operational maintenance of tritium systems. Prompt and efficient maintenance is necessary to ensure the accepted operational safety basis is adhered to and a continued safe state of operation is achieved. This will help to mitigate and avoid potential hazards that result from a tritium release to the public and facility personnel. Because of the hazards associated with a release of tritium contamination the process systems are in large kept within a series of inerted glovebox environments that must be maintained to keep structural integrity. The nature of a tritium release from a glovebox could have significant consequences for the general public as well as for personnel. As such, the maintenance philosophy is developed to help facilitate operations in the adherence to the facility’s safety code of conduct.
To effectively facilitate the safe operation goals mentioned a well-defined maintenance philosophy has been developed that encompasses routine and non-routine maintenance activities. Examples of routine activities include preventative maintenance such as line-break inspections, helium leak tests to ensure components are leak tight, weld inspections and overall surveillance testing of essential components and infrastructure. Predictive maintenance also falls into this category. Predictive maintenance activities are developed over time in response to non-routine maintenance work. Non-routine maintenance or corrective maintenance activities are performed in response to a specific failure or to resolve a particular inadequacy in performance of tritium systems. When corrective maintenance is performed trends are often studied and more predictive maintenance can be scheduled to compensate for more routine failures.
This technical note will identify key operational maintenance considerations which when applied, will ensure that tritium handling systems are operated safely.
