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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.
Satoshi Fukada, Mao Kinjyo, Takuji Oda, Terunori Nishikawa, Kadzunari Katayama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 374-381
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1327293
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Various properties of Li-Pb eutectic alloys have been reported aiming at adopting the tritium breeder for the next-step fusion reactor, DEMO. Relations among several physical or chemical properties are reinvestigated here based on not only macroscopic views of the H isotope solubility in Li-Pb and the chemical activity of Li and Pb atoms in the alloy but also a microscopic view on the state of being of H and Li atoms in alloy based on the 1st principle molecular dynamic (MD) numerical calculation. The Sieverts’ constant of H dissolved in Li-Pb is closely related with the chemical activity of Li in Li-Pb. It is found that H dissolved in Li-Pb eutectic alloy has an ionic Li+-H− bond with a single Li atom independent of other Li or Pb atoms and the Li+-H− ionic bond is isolated from another Li atom surrounded by Pb ones. The isotope effect for the Sieverts’ constant is also understood in terms of the state of being of the Li+-H− bond in the alloy. The amounts of inert gases dissolved in the Li-Pb eutectic alloy are evaluated, and it is found that their solubilities are in proportion to the square of the molecular diameter which is estimated from exclusive volume of dissolved gas and consequently with the open space volume among Li-Pb atoms. Two experimental results of hydrogen isotopes recovery are introduced using a permeation window and a Li-Pb and inert gas direct contact method, and mass-transfer coefficients to correlate the overall hydrogen transfer process are determined as a function of diffusivity and flow velocity.
