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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.
K. Y. Watanabe, Y. Suzuki, S. Sakakibara, T. Yamaguchi, Y. Narushima, Y. Nakamura, K. Ida, N. Nakajima, H. Yamada, LHD Experiment Group
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 58 | Number 1 | July-August 2010 | Pages 160-175
Chapter 4. MHD | Special Issue on Large Helical Device (LHD) | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A10803
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the vacuum of the Large Helical Device (LHD), we can change the plasma volume, the aspect ratio, the ellipticity, the rotational transform, and the height of the magnetic hill through the control of the vertical and the qudrupole components of the magnetic field and the helical coil pitch parameter. The two effects of the finite beta on the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) configuration, the magnetic surface torus outward shift and the invasion of the stochastic region into the plasma core, are discussed. The former is qualitatively the same as that by the external vertical field control. According to the comparison between a theoretical prediction in the finite beta and the vacuum field calculation in the vertical field control, the latter effect is strongly affected by the nonaxisymmetric component of the equilibrium current. A theoretical prediction suggests that an MHD equilibrium beta limit different from the conventional one exists due to the lack of the equilibrium force balance in the stochastic region. The key parameters to improve the accuracy of the identification of the MHD equilibrium configuration are shown to be the identification of the toroidal current profile, the anisotropic pressure effect, and the identification of the plasma boundary shape.
