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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.
Masanori Hara, Miki Shoji, Tsukasa Aso
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 3 | April 2020 | Pages 163-169
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1661720
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Liquid scintillation counters (LSCs) have been widely used for low-level tritium measurements. To obtain an accurate tritium activity using a LSC, a quenching correction is required. The quenching occurs from interruptions to the scintillation process (chemical quenching) and by absorption of scintillation photons by colored substances (color quenching). There is no common method for the correction of color quenching. Here, two-dimensional (2-D) scintillation spectra were measured with a conventional LSC connected to an external multichannel analyzer. The LSC had two photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). A 2-D spectrum was constructed from pulse heights from both PMTs. In a less-quenching cocktail, the 2-D scintillation spectra extended along a 45-deg line. However, the shape of the spectrum broadened with increasing color quenching and thus gave information about the color quenching. The effect of color quenching was qualitatively less significant in the relationship between the tritium counting efficiency and the quenching index parameter.