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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.
M. Yokoyama, A. Wakasa, S. Murakami, K. Y. Watanabe, S. Satake, S. Nishimura, H. Sugama, N. Nakajima, H. Funaba, Y. Nakamura
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 58 | Number 1 | July-August 2010 | Pages 269-276
Chapter 6. 3-D Theory | Special Issue on Large Helical Device (LHD) | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A10813
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper reviews how neoclassical (NC) transport analyses have been exploited to predict/understand the improved confinement achieved in the Large Helical Device (LHD), such as high-temperature and/or high-density regimes. Recent high-performance LHD plasmas have provided a good opportunity to test/verify the impact of the radial electric field (Er) for reducing the NC transport in the low-collisionality regime. The bifurcative nature of Er to the electron root was clarified to be the background physics for the improved electron heat confinement in the core region. The ion root has been verified with measurement as predicted from the NC ambipolarity for the high-ion temperature plasmas. The construction of the NC diffusion coefficient database has been advanced for making accurate and fast NC calculations available. The predicted dependence of the bootstrap current on the magnetic configuration has also been experimentally verified. The extension of NC transport theory itself has been greatly motivated by the extension of the plasma parameters. Code development for the inclusion of the finite orbit width effect and the progress of the moment approach are explained as such examples.