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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.
Neil B. Morley, Albert Medina, Mohamed A. Abdou
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 195-200
Tritium, Safety, and Environment | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A8901
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Silicon Carbide (SiC) has been proposed as a possible candidate material for flow channel inserts for the dual coolant blanket concept. Here, the total electrical resistance of disks of high purity CVD SiC were measured with liquid lead-lithium eutectic (LLE) alloy melts serving as electrodes. From this data, the relative contributions of intrinsic resistivity and surface contact resistance as a function of measurement temperature was deduced. It was shown that after a relatively short period of exposure, once wetting at the interface was achieved, that contact resistance at the SiC/LLE interface was not significant. The contact resistance during initial exposure did not behave in a repeatable consistent way and appears to be affected by small variations in sample preparation. For modeling purposes, the electrical properties of an FCI can be based on the intrinsic electrical conductivity of the material and the dimensions. However, longer term operations and effects of impurities still need to be addressed.