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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.
Zhilin Chen, Masao Matsuyama, Shuming Peng, Yang Yang, Yu Li, Shenghan Cheng
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 74 | Number 3 | October 2018 | Pages 246-251
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2018.1462086
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritium release behavior in a tungsten sample after exposing to tritium ions with energy about 200 eV created by glow discharge has been studied by both β-ray–induced X-ray spectrometry (BIXS) and imaging plate (IP). The tungsten sample was heated stepwise in a vacuum vessel at temperatures from 400 to 1000 K in experiments, and results obtained from both BIXS and IP measurements showed that the amount of tritium absorbed on the sample surface decreased more than 97% after heating at 800 K. Both intensity and shape of the measured X-ray spectrum have been specified to estimate the change of the tritium depth profile after each heat treatment. Besides, the Monte Carlo Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) code has been introduced to calculate the initial tritium depth profile just after being irradiated by glow discharge. Analysis shows that tritium atoms locate around 3 nm in depth before annealing, and tritium distribution becomes uniform in the near-surface layers (around several nanometers) gradually after heat treatment. At about 800 K, the relative tritium concentration in the near-surface layers reaches its maximum value compared with tritium in the deeper part of the tungsten sample. Then more and more tritium diffuses deeper into the sample as the temperature increases.
