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Latest News
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.
Han Zhang, Peter H. Titus, Robert Ellis, Soren Harrison, Rui Vieira
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 2 | August 2013 | Pages 250-254
Plasma-Material Interactions | Proceedings of the Twentieth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE-2012) (Part 1), Nashville, Tennessee, August 27-31, 2012 | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A18085
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Alcator C-Mod is planning an upgrade to its outer divertor. The upgrade is intended to correct the existing outer divertor alignment with the plasma, and to operate at elevated temperatures. Higher temperature operation will allow study of edge physics behavior at reactor relevant temperatures. The outer divertor and tiles will be capable of operating at 600 °C. Longer pulse length, together with the plasma and RF heat of 9 MW, and the inclusion of heater elements within the outer divertor produces radiative energy which makes the sustained operation much more difficult than before. An ANSYS model was built for the global thermal analysis of C-Mod. It models the radiative surfaces inside the vessel and between the components, and also includes plasma energy deposition. Different geometries have been simulated and compared. Results show that steady state operation with the divertor at 600 °C is possible with no damage to major vessel internal components. The differential temperature between inner divertor structure, or "girdle" and inner vessel wall is ~70 °C. This differential temperature is limited by the capacity of the studs that hold the inner divertor backing plates to the vessel wall. At a 70 °C temperature differential the stress on the studsis within allowable limits. The thermal model was then used for a stress pass to quantify vessel shell stresses where thermal gradients are significant.