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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.
Yoichi Sakuma, Toshiki Kabutomori, Haruo Obayashi, Yuichi Wakisaka, Keizo Ohnishi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 27 | Number 2 | March 1995 | Pages 91-94
doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A11963811
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In order to separate and store tritium (T) in the nuclear fusion cycle, we investigated the use of a hydrogen storage alloy which is safer and more easily handled than other materials, especially uranium. The solid solution alloy TiCr0.4V1.2Fe0.4 was chosen for the investigation because it resists pulverization and is easily activated. Using this alloy, we measured the storage volume, the equilibrium pressure and the isotope effect of absorption and desorption reactions in a low (10−2 ~ 102 Pa) hydrogen atmosphere pressure. The alloy had an absorbing volume of H/M = 0.5 by atomic ratio and the equilibrium absorbing pressure was almost the same as uranium's at the same ambient temperature. The equilibrium reaction has no isotope effect, but the reaction velocity between H2 and the alloy was twice that between D2 and the alloy. Even after several hundred repetitions of hydrogen absorption and desorption, still no change in the alloy was observed.