BPX insulation irradiation program test results

The toroidal field coil insulation for the Burning Plasma Experiment (BPX) is expected to receive a radiation dose of nearly 1010 rad and to withstand significant mechanical stresses. An irradiation test program was performed at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) using the Advanced Technology Reactor (ATR) for irradiations to doses on the order of 3 x 1010 rad. The flexure and shear strength with compression of commercially procured sheet material were reported earlier. A second series of tests has been performed to slightly higher dose levels with vacuum impregnated materials, glass strand material, and Spaulrad-S sheet samples. Vacuum impregnation with a Shell 9405 resin and 9470 hardener was used to produce bonded copper squares and flexure samples of both pure resin and resin with S-glass. A new test fixture was developed to test the bonded samples in shear without applied compression. The Spaulrad-S flexure samples demonstrated a loss of strength with irradiation, similar to previous results. The pure resin lost nearly all flexibility, while the S-glass-reinforced samples retained between 30% and 40% of the initial flexure strength. The S-glass strands showed a 30% loss of strength at the higher dose level when tested in tension. The bonded copper squares had a low room-temperature shear strength of approximately 17 MPa before irradiation, which was unchanged in the irradiated samples. Shear testing of unirradiated bonded copper squares with ten different types of surface treatment revealed that the low shear strength resulted from the polyurethane primer used. In the later series of test, the epoxy-based primers and DZ-80 from Ciba-Geigy did much better, with shear strengths on the order of 40 MPa. These samples also demonstrated a resistance to cryogenic shock. One irradiated bonded sample was tested up 10 210 MPa in compression, the limit of the test fixture, without failure