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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.
Enrico Lucon, Rik-Wouter Bosch, Lorenzo Malerba, Steven Van Dyck, Marc Decréton
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 895-900
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Fusion Materials | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A801
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the last 20 years, fusion material programs in Europe, Japan and US have been focused on developing Reduced Activation Ferritic/Martensitic (RAFM) steels as prominent structural materials. In the European Union, within the Long Term Programme of EFDA (European Fusion Development Agreement), considerable effort has been spent by several scientific institutions for the characterization and optimization of the European reference RAFM steel (EUROFER97). Within the Belgian Nuclear Centre (SCKCEN), an integrated approach to the characterization of EUROFER97 is being consistently applied; this includes: neutron irradiations in the BR2 reactor and subsequent characterization of the unirradiated and irradiated mechanical properties (tensile, impact and fracture toughness tests); investigation of environmentally assisted cracking (more specifically, study of the influence of irradiation damage on both EAC and embrittlement in Pb-Li alloys); multiscale modelling of radiation effects and specific effects on Fe-Cr systems, using methods which range from the atomic level (MD - Molecular Dynamics) to the mesoscopic level (KMC - Kinetic Monte Carlo). This paper will provide a general overview of the above mentioned investigations, as well as highlights of the most significant results obtained in the different fields of activity.
