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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.
Igor Peñalva, Gustavo A. Esteban, Natalia Alegría, Jon Azkurreta, María Urrestizala, Marta Malo, Belit Garcinuño, David Rapisarda
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 3 | May 2024 | Pages 596-606
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2194237
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The determination of the transport parameters of the hydrogen isotopes in the eutectic lead-lithium (PbLi) alloy represents a key issue for the design of the different breeding blanket systems that are being developed based on this liquid metal. This is the case for the dual-coolant lithium-lead blanket where the values of the Sieverts’ constant and diffusivity will delimit the magnitude and the kinetics of the induced tritium flux produced by the breeding blanket toward the circuit of He for the refrigeration of the structures. In addition, the design (sizing and efficiency) of future tritium extraction systems of the breeding alloy or the He coolant purification system will be defined on the basis of these transport parameters.
Taking into account the current literature, there exists a very wide band (even more than three orders of magnitude) in the experimental results for the Sieverts’ constant obtained by different research groups using different experimental techniques. This dispersion band in terms of solubility is not acceptable from the point of view of the design of a breeding blanket for a fusion reactor. With the aim of reducing this dispersion of results, the Absorption-Desorption facility available at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has been upgraded and new samples of high quality PbLi will be measured in the near future in collaboration with CIEMAT.
In this work, a complete theoretical model is described for the interaction between isotopes of hydrogen and the eutectic PbLi sample considering the particular boundary conditions for the absorption and desorption processes. This model has been specifically developed for the upgraded Absorption-Desorption facility available at the UPV/EHU, according to the new configuration of the experimental chamber made of glass and quartz and the geometry of the crucible made of tungsten that is designed to hold the PbLi sample. Three different phases are described (loading, pumping, and release) together with the boundary conditions that have been taken into account in each one. This way, different mathematical expressions for the concentration profile of the isotopes of hydrogen through the PbLi sample are posed for each phase so that the experimental measurements to be carried out in the upgraded Absorption-Desorption facility will be fitted to them, and as a result, the transport parameters will be obtained.
