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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.
Michael J. Morgan, Dale A. Hitchcock, Timothy M. Krentz, Scott L. West
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 3 | April 2020 | Pages 209-214
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1704138
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The long-term embrittlement effects of tritium and decay helium on the structural properties of stainless steels have been studied for years at Savannah River National Laboratory (Savannah River) to provide required data for establishing safe operating conditions and the lifetimes of the pressure vessels used to contain tritium gas. In this study, the fracture toughness properties of the longest-aged tritium-precharged stainless steel base metals and weldments tested at Savannah River were measured and compared to earlier results. The fracture toughness values were the lowest recorded here for tritium-exposed stainless steel. As-forged and as-welded specimens were thermally precharged with tritium gas at 34.5 MPa and 623 K, then aged for up to 17 years to build in decay helium prior to testing. American Society for Testing and Materials J-integral fracture mechanics analyses, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) examinations were conducted to characterize the effects of tritium and its radioactive decay product 3He. Results show that the fracture toughness values were reduced to less than 2% to 4% of the as-forged values for specimens with more than 1300 atomic parts per million helium from tritium decay. The trend of decreasing fracture toughness values with increasing helium content was consistent with earlier observations, and the data show that Type 304L stainless steel is more resistant to tritium-induced cracking than Type 21-6-9 stainless steel at similar decay helium levels. The fracture toughness properties of long-aged weldments were also affected, but the reductions were not as severe over time because the weldments did not retain as much tritium as did the base metals. TEM observations were used to characterize the effects of decay helium bubbles on the deformation substructures, but nanometer-sized helium bubbles were not easily resolved because of high dislocation densities within the forged microstructures. SANS results are presented that suggest the technique can provide information on decay helium bubble size, spacing, and distribution in these steels.
