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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.
Alireza Behbahani, James N. Anno
Nuclear Technology | Volume 111 | Number 1 | July 1995 | Pages 70-79
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A35145
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Concern about possible radiation damage from the increasing exposure of memory disks to mild radiation environments prompted an experimental investigation into this matter. A series of programmed memory disks were exposed at near room temperatures and in an air environment to several types and intensities of radiation, with stored data retrieved before and after exposure. Initial separate exposures to alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron radiation were in the range of 5 to 15 mrad, the “upper limit” of radiation exposure that might be expected in common usage situations. Finding no permanent damage, the disks were then subjected to high-level 60Co gamma radiation to total doses up to 20 Mrad, again with no detectable postirradiation effects. Finally, the disks were subjected to high-level neutrons (up to 2.86 x 1011 n/cm2 total thermal neutron fluence) as well as to gammas in a research reactor. Postulated radiation damage mechanisms apparently were not consequential. It is concluded that in the range investigated, radiation damage to memory disks is not significant to their ability to function.