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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.
M. Sawan, A. Ibrahim, T. Bohm, P. Wilson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 756-760
Nuclear Analysis | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9000
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The High Average Power Laser (HAPL) power plant has targets that are directly driven by forty KrF laser beams. Three-dimensional neutronics calculations were performed directly in the exact CAD model of the HAPL final optics system to assess the impact of the biological shielding configuration on the nuclear environment at the GIMM and dielectric focusing and turning mirrors. In the initial configuration, the biological shield fully encloses the GIMM sand associated dielectric mirrors. We assessed another configuration where the shield is moved farther from the target to fully enclose the dielectric mirrors leaving the GIMM in the open space between the chamber and the biological shield. A variation of this configuration utilizes 40 neutron traps attached to the inner surface of the biological shield behind the GIMMs. It is concluded that the shielding configuration with all optics including the GIMM being fully enclosed in the biological shield is the preferred option since it results in the lowest nuclear environment at the dielectric mirrors, provides better GIMM support, reduces the volume to be maintained under vacuum, and requires the least amount of concrete shield.
