Testing Characterization of Highly Irradiated Reactor Internals

Testing Characterization of Highly Irradiated Reactor Internals: Market survey to determine the availability of potential qualified vendors with the technical capability to provide all management, supervision, administration, and labor for the Testing and Characterization of Highly Irradiated Reactor Internals. Specific activities include: handling, machining, testing and characterization of highly irradiated materials. Equipment and Facilities Hot cell facilities capable of receiving, handling, shipping, machining, and testing highly irradiated materials with activities up to the order of 100-1,000 Ci. Specific testing capabilities required include irradiation-assisted stress corrosion cracking growth rate (IASCC CGR) testing in light water reactor (LWR) environments, fracture toughness testing, and tensile testing. To accomplish these tests in a reasonable time, the hot cell must be equipped with two load cells with autoclaves to maintain an LWR temperature/coolant environment. It would be preferred to also have slow strain rate testing and creep/stress relaxation testing capabilities available. In addition to testing capabilities, microstructural characterization capabilities are also needed. At a minimum, hardness or microhardness testing and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy is needed to assess fracture surfaces and microstructures following testing. It would be preferred to also have access to transmission electron microscopy capabilities to assess irradiated damage such as dislocation loops and cavities for correlation with mechanical properties. Other preferred (but not required) capabilities include field ion microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, atomic force microscopy, wavelength dispersive X-ray analysis, impulse excitation technique, secondary ion mass spectroscopy, electron energy loss spectroscopy, auger electron spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry. To facilitate testing and characterization, the facilities must also be capable of receiving, handling, shipping, machining, and disposing of highly irradiated materials with activities up to the order of 100-1,000 Ci.

Division 01 -	General Requirements, Quality Control, Testing and Inspecting Services.
Division 11 -	Equipment.