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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.
Daniel M. Wachs, Dennis D. Keiser, Douglas L. Porter, Naoyuki Kisohara
Nuclear Technology | Volume 164 | Number 3 | December 2008 | Pages 465-473
Technical Paper | Materials for Nuclear Systems | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A4038
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
After 30 yr of operation, the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) Superheater 710 at Argonne National Laboratory-West (now Idaho National Laboratory) was decommissioned. As part of its postservice examination, four duplex tube sections were removed and Charpy impact testing was performed to characterize the crack-arresting ability of nickel-bonded tube interfaces. A scanning electron microscopy (SEM) examination was also performed to characterize and identify changes in bond material microstructure. From room temperature to 400°C, all samples demonstrated ductility and crack-stopping ability similar to that exhibited by beginning-of-life samples. However, at a low temperature (-50°C), samples removed from the lower region of the superheater (near the sodium inlet) failed while those from the upper region (near the sodium outlet) did not. SEM analysis revealed that all the tube-tube interfaces showed evidence of iron diffusion into the nickel braze, which resulted in the formation of a multiphase diffusion structure. Yet, significant void formation was only observed in the bond layer of the tubes removed from the lower region. This may be due to a change in the crystal microstructure of one of the phases within the bond layer that occurs in the 350 to 450°C temperature range, which results in a lower density and the formation of porosity. Apparently, only the samples from the higher-temperature region were exposed to this transition temperature, and the resulting large voids that developed acted as stress concentrators that led to low-temperature embrittlement and failure of the Charpy impact specimens.