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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.
Florian Priester
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 4 | May 2017 | Pages 600-604
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1289585
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This technical note describes advances in the activity measurement of tritiated water with the method of scintillation counting in a solid fibre. The device described can be installed inline thus enabling the monitoring of a process without the need for taking samples. Due to the low overall costs, the system can be installed at various positions in a larger plant adding additional safety and better control over the process. The current technical note on the TRAMPEL setup (TRitium Activity Monitoring with a PhotomultipliEr in Liquids) focuses on the updates and enhanced detection limits due to an updated readout and DAQ system. It is now possible to measure inline down to activity concentrations of 104 Bq/ml, which is roughly one order of magnitude lower than previously reported. A possible memory effect as well as the influence of the filling level was investigated. All measurements were performed with a standalone (non-inline) cell but can be applied for a flow-through application, too.
