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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.
Greg Staack, Yung-Sung Cheng, Yue Zhou, Tom LaBone
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 4 | May 2017 | Pages 570-574
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1291041
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Samples of tritiated LaNi4.15Al0.85 (LANA.85) and 13X zeolite were analyzed to obtain particle size distributions and tritium evolution rates in a simulated lung environment. This information was used to calculate intake-to-dose conversion factors (DCFs), which estimate the committed effective dose (CED) a worker would receive after inhaling either tritiated particulate. The DCFs for tritiated LANA.85 and 13X particulate with a default activity mean aerodynamic diameter (AMAD) of 5 μm were determined to be 1.01E-11 Sv/Bq and 1.11E-11 Sv/Bq, respectively. These results are comparable to that of HTO, 1.8E-11 Sv/Bq, indicating that urine bioassay results can conservatively estimate the dose delivered if the worker was exposed to any mixture of HTO, LANA.85, or 13X.