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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.
Sei-Hun Yun et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 867-872
Tritium Breeding | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9020
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Thermophysical properties of the complex metal hydride system such as zirconium cobalt hydride, an intermetallic hydride compound, in a massive state were estimated by introducing a crystal lattice structure in a stepwise formation and applying a mixing rule for each property. Experimental data in rarity in metal hydride system was used to calculate and to correlate the consistency of the mixed thermal and physical properties of the complex atomic structure in a unit cell. As a result, the volume expansion of the ZrCoHx was greatly influenced by the hydrogen content and increased to a maximum range of 36% at ZrCoH3 system, but no meaning in the thermal expansion in engineering concept. In consideration of the heat capacity the temperature effect due to the hydrogen an interstitial heat quantity in the metal complex formation was mainly attributed, but not much for the hydrogen content (H/ZrCo ratio). In the temperature range between 200K and 600K the heat capacity of hydrogen atom was taken into account to reveal a sharp discrepancy in its non-hydriding property, especially in the lower temperature range. Atomic hydrogen was expected to behave from a gas to a solid property in heat capacity in the temperature ranges from 600K to 200K.