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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.
C. C. Petty
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 2 | October 2005 | Pages 1159-1169
Technical Paper | DIII-D Tokamak - Radio-Frequency Heating and Current Drive | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A1068
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two methods of radio-frequency (rf) current drive that are well suited to controlling and sustaining the current profile in burning plasma experiments have been studied in the DIII-D tokamak. Fast-wave current drive (FWCD) gave centrally peaked current densities that increased linearly with central electron temperature. While high harmonic absorption of the fast waves on energetic beam ions could reduce the available power for current drive, FWCD figures of merit as high as FW = 0.5 × 1019 A/m2W were still achieved. Electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) was shown to be localized to the region of power deposition, with a current drive efficiency that decreased as the magnetic well depth increased. The detrimental effect of the magnetic well could be mitigated by raising the electron beta. ECCD figures of merit as high as EC = 0.5 × 1019 A/m2W were measured for central deposition. The experimental FWCD and ECCD were both extensively tested against theoretical models and were found to be in excellent agreement. Validation of these predictive models of rf current drive aids in scenario development for next-step tokamaks.
