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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.
Marie-Françoise Maday
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 861-865
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Fusion Materials | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A794
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Hydrogen embrittlement behaviour of the reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steels, Eurofer'97 and VS3104, has been compared to that of the conventional alloy T91, by means of constant extension rate tests run under dynamic electrochemical charging. Charged versus uncharged reduction of specimen area ratios at rupture were taken as the most suitable ductility indexes for material discrimination in terms of hydrogen damage resistance. Fractographic analysis indicated that hydrogen content as low as 1.6 wppm caused rupture of al investigated steels, but to different degree, by promoting grain boundary decohesion. Higher hydrogen levels stimulated failure by the combined effect of bond strength weakening and stress intensification from dislocation blocking at interfaces. The better performances of T91 as well as the variability of Eurofer tensile responses were ascribed to the different chemistry and density of key microstructural factors, already suspected from metallurgical examination and further supported by hydrogen thermal extraction results.
