Instrument Description
The Fuels and Applied Science Building houses four gloveboxes. All of these have an inert argon atmosphere and are located in the west room of the facility. Since all of the gloveboxes contain accountable material, the transfer ports are kept locked except when in use. The gloveboxes are:
RERTR main glovebox
This is actually two independent boxes manufactured by Vac Atmospheres connected by a transfer port (since they are tied together, it is referred to as a single unit). It has a purified argon atmosphere, four areas separated by bulkheads, and 10 workstations.
The equipment housed in this box is:
The hydrogen manifold and furnace allows processing of uranium by supplying hydrogen, nitrogen, and vacuum. This allows creation of uranium hydride, uranium powder, and uranium nitride.
A small arc melting furnace is used to make gram quantities of alloy blends and perform rudimentary castings of rods and plates.
A rotary electrode atomizer is used to make metal powders. This has been used to fabricate dozens of fuel specimens irradiated in the ATR and other reactors.
A manual hydraulic press is used to press powder compacts for further processing.
A TIG welding system
Additional powder handling equipment and miscellaneous tools
Small RERTR glovebox
This is a Vac Atmospheres single-sided, single workstation with a bleed-and-feed purification system that contains a high-temperature sintering furnace.
West development glovebox
This is an INL-built glovebox with a purification system. It has seven workstations and houses the small-scale electrorefiner.