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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.
Robert H. Hsu, James E. Klein
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 83-87
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Tritium Processing, Transportation, and Storage | doi.org/10.13182/FST48-83
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Palladium finely dispersed in a substrate of kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) has been successfully used for tritium storage, separation and pumping for a number of years at the Savannah River Site (SRS). Recently SRS has designed and built a new Pd/kieselguhr flow through bed (FTB) prototype for separating tritium from other gases and simultaneously storing the tritium on palladium. The FTB prototype uses single-pass liquid nitrogen for cooling during tritium absorption/loading/storage and electrical heaters for desorption/unloading of tritium. Fourteen (14) hydrogen absorption/desorption or loading/unloading cycles have been conducted with the new FTB prototype. Test results show that all design performance objectives have been successfully achieved: recover >95% of hydrogen gas from feed gas, <5% hydrogen in discharge gas, and >99.9% hydrogen in the desorbed product gas. This paper will discuss the design and operation of the FTB, and results of performance tests such as separation efficiency, hydrogen/tritium storage capacity and temperature profiles during prep cooling, hydrogen loading and unloading.
