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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.
S. Morita, M. Goto, S. Muto, H. Y. Zhou, C. F. Dong, LHD Experiment Group
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 58 | Number 1 | July-August 2010 | Pages 91-102
Chapter 3. Confinement and Transport | Special Issue on Large Helical Device (LHD) | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A10796
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Impurity transport has been studied in the Large Helical Device (LHD) with different diagnostic approaches based on an active method that combine carbon pellet injection with visible bremsstrahlung measurement and three passive methods for radial profile measurements of Ar and Fe K X-ray lines, Zeff, and extreme ultraviolet (EUV, 500 Å) impurity line emissions, in addition to usual passive spectroscopy. The existence of an inward convective velocity is confirmed in the edge region ( > 0.6) using the active method, whereas no convection is required in the core region ( < 0.6). The electron density dependence is weak for the diffusion coefficient (typically D = 0.15 to 0.25 m2 /s) for densities of 1 to 5 × 1013 cm-3 but is strong for the inward convective velocity, which varies in the range of V(a) = -0.2 to -1.5 m/s. The inward V in helium plasmas (-0.4 m/s at = 0.8 and the central density, ne [approximately] 4.0 × 1013 cm-3) is nearly half that in hydrogen plasmas (-0.7 m/s). This difference suggests a charge state dependence of fuel ions predicted by the neoclassical theory. Radial profiles of impurity transport coefficients of argon and iron have been studied using spatially resolved soft X-ray pulse-height analyzers. The impurity transport has also been studied in extremely high density discharges achieved by H2 pellet injection based on the passive spectroscopy and Zeff profile measurement. A flat Zeff profile is obtained at ne = 2.5 × 1014 cm-3 with values of 1.1 Zeff 1.2, suggesting no existence of impurity accumulation and radially constant impurity partial pressure. Finally, radial profiles of impurity lines in the EUV range are analyzed with the transport coefficients.