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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.
Yoshinori Kawamura, Satoshi Konishi, Masataka Nishi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 45 | Number 1 | January 2004 | Pages 33-40
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A423
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A blanket tritium recovery system that uses an electrochemical hydrogen pump with a protonic conductor membrane is proposed. One of the advantages of this system is the potential for processing the blanket sweep gas without fractionation of hydrogen isotopes and water vapor. In this work, hydrogen in a water molecule is extracted by a hydrogen pump using a Perovskite-type ceramic such as SrCe0.95Yb0.05O3-. The threshold, which corresponds to the energy of H2O decomposition, for hydrogen extraction from the water molecule is 500 to 600 mV at 873 K. The threshold becomes smaller with increases of the partial pressure of the water vapor. In the case of pumping of the H2-H2O mixture gas, transportation of H2 precedes H2O decomposition below the threshold (H2O decomposition voltage), and the threshold becomes larger. In order to process the blanket sweep gas without fractionation of hydrogen isotope and water vapor, comparatively high applied voltage is required.
