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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.
John M. Scott, Per F. Peterson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 772-776
National Ignition Facility-Target Area | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963707
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) will support multiple user groups who will use NIF's unique capability to generate intense pulses of x-ray, neutron and gamma radiation from non-ignition and ignition targets. Contamination of the final-optics debris shields by target, near-target, and remobilized first-wall debris will determine the types of experiments that can be fielded. Some of these experimental packages will require target-facing surfaces that nearly enclose the target. Due to the short stand-off distances of these surfaces, x-ray ablation inside these confined spaces will generate conditions in NIF quite similar to those envisioned for future Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) target chambers like HYLIFE. The design of these NIF experiments provides an excellent opportunity to apply the analytical target-chamber design tools the IFE research community has created, and in a synergistic way, these experiments will in turn provide a rich source of experimental data for IFE target-chamber research.