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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.
J. Miyazawa, S. Masuzaki, R. Sakamoto, B. J. Peterson, N. Tamura, M. Goto, M. Kobayashi, M. Shoji, T. Akiyama, H. Yamada, LHD Experiment Group
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 58 | Number 1 | July-August 2010 | Pages 200-207
Chapter 5. Divertor and Edge Physics | Special Issue on Large Helical Device (LHD) | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A10807
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Easy access to the high-density regime without fatal disruptive phenomena is one of the important characteristics of the Large Helical Device (LHD). The operational density is considerably higher than the Greenwald density limit for tokamak plasmas. The density limit in LHD is reached when the edge density at the last closed flux surface exceeds a value approximately equivalent to the Sudo density limit that increases with the square root of the heating power. Extremely high central density of >1 × 1021 m-3 is achievable with a peaked density profile, as long as the edge density is kept lower than the Sudo limit. Furthermore, the central heating power must be larger than the radiation loss in the core region to avoid the "cold-core" phenomenon. As for the plasma edge, complete detachment takes place when the edge density exceeds the limit. Then, reattachment/Serpens mode/radiative collapse will follow, depending on the recycling condition.