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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.
Yu Iwamoto, Takayuki Shirouzu, Yasushi Yamamoto, Nobuyuki Inoue
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 2 | March 2001 | Pages 552-556
Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963294
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Effects of electrode shape on fusion reaction rate in the cylindrical IECF device are investigated by the experiments to verify simulation results. The effects of the cylindrical edge of anodes are clearly observed, but the effect of cathode length and radius is not clear in the preliminary experiments. The maximum neutron generation rate of ~47 thousand neutrons per second is obtained with 37.5kV, 6mA discharge using an anode with 40-mm depth edge.
