OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY
Building 3025E - Irradiated Materials Examination and Testing Facility
The Irradiated Materials Examination and Testing (IMET) hot cell facility, housed in Building 3025E, supports post-irradiation testing for the Materials Science and Technology, which was created from the March 1, 2006 merger of the former Condensed Matter Sciences and the Metals and Ceramics Divisions. The facility is used by DOE Office of Science, DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Heavy Section Steel Initiative, and NNSA Naval Reactors advanced materials programs.
It is a class III nuclear facility with six interconnected steel-lined hot cells containing 320 square feet of work space. It also includes 600 square feet of work space for test equipment control systems. The hot cells are connected to the ORNL low-level liquid waste system. The IMET facility also contains 60 storage wells, a 5-ton capacity overhead crane, and a second one-ton capacity crane at Cell 6. A radiological specimen preparation facility includes three shielded glove boxes and a chemical hood.
The hot cells are the mechanical testing and examination facility for highly irradiated structural alloys and ceramics. Some of the processes include scanning electron microscope fractography, precision densitometry, tensile testing, creep testing, capsule disassembly, microscopic examination, grinding, polishing, welding, shearing, machining, sawing, photography, video examination, pressurized tube/laser profilometry, crack arrest and growth studies, fracture toughness studies, uniaxial fatigue testing in air and under vacuum, and transmission electron and field ion microscopy specimen preparation and testing of Charpy impact specimens for the High Flux Isotope Reactor pressure vessel surveillance program.
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