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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.
B. W. N. Fitzpatrick, J. W. Davis, A. A. Haasz
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 4 | May 2018 | Pages 552-558
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1404346
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
If both carbon and tungsten were to be part of the plasma-facing armor in a future fusion reactor, it is inevitable that carbon co-deposits containing tungsten impurities will form. This work examines the effectiveness of thermo-oxidation in removing hydrogen from W-containing carbon co-deposits. Amorphous deuterated hydrocarbon (a-C:D) films were created with a CD4/Ar direct-current glow discharge and doped with W sputtered from a W mesh in front of the specimen. The W concentration in the specimens ranged from 0 to 35 at. % W/(W + C). The films were oxidized at 350°C, in 2 Torr pure O2 for time increments totaling 8 h. The D content of the films was measured before and at various stages of the oxidation exposure using laser thermal desorption spectroscopy. Essentially all deuterium was removed from films containing very little or no W doping [<0.1% W/(W + C)]. For films with more W [few percent W/(W + C)], oxidation was less effective at removing D. For two specimens with 2.4% and 35% W/(W + C), oxidation was completely ineffective at removing D.