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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.
Heemoon Kim, Kwangheon Park, Bong Goo Kim, Yong Sun Choo, Keon Sik Kim, Kun Woo Song, Kwon Pyo Hong, Young Hwan Kang, Kwangil Ho
Nuclear Technology | Volume 147 | Number 1 | July 2004 | Pages 149-156
Technical Paper | Thoria-Urania NERI | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3521
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Postirradiation annealing tests were performed to obtain the 133Xe diffusion coefficients in uranium dioxide (UO2) and mixed thorium-uranium dioxide [(Th-U)O2] fuels. Specimens were a single-grained UO2, a polycrystalline UO2, and a polycrystalline (Th-U)O2. The (Th-U)O2 specimen was a mixture of 35% ThO2 and 65% UO2. Each 300-mg specimen was irradiated to a burnup of 0.1 MWd/t U. Postirradiation annealing tests were performed at 1400, 1500, and 1600°C, continuously. The xenon diffusion coefficients for the nearly stoichiometric single-grained UO2 agree well with the data of others. The xenon diffusion coefficients in the polycrystalline (Th-U)O2 are approximately one order lower than those in the polycrystalline UO2. The xenon diffusion coefficient in the (Th-U)O2 increases with the increasing oxygen potential of the ambient gas.
