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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.
Shuhei Nogami, Takashi Nozawa, Daichi Kawai, Wenhai Guan, Akira Hasegawa
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 398-403
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1333822
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Because fatigue resistance is one of the most important issues for the blanket structural materials of the fusion reactor, the fatigue damage formation processes of the advanced SiC/SiC composite (Tyranno SA 3rd/CVI-SiC composite with SiC/C multilayer interphase) for fusion reactor applications were investigated. The fatigue tests of the SiC/SiC composite were successfully performed up to 105 cycles with no significant technical issues by using a small specimen test technique developed under the IFMIF/EVEDA. Based on the evaluation of the modulus change during the fatigue tests, the tensile loading was clarified to be a dominant factor for the degradation of the SiC/SiC composite.
