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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. Yamamoto, T. Shibata, K. Tsuzuki, M. Sato, H. Kimura, F. Okano, H. Kawashima, S. Suzuki, K. Shinohara, JFT-2M Group, K. Urata
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 2 | February 2006 | Pages 241-248
Technical Paper | JFT-2M Tokamak | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1098
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The JFT-2M tokamak has been modified three times during the Advanced Material Tokamak EXperiment (AMTEX) program to investigate the compatibility of the low-activation ferritic steel F82H with tokamak plasmas as structural material for future reactors. The ferritic steel plates/wall were installed inside and/or outside of the vacuum vessel to reduce the ripple of the toroidal magnetic field step by step through three modifications. This paper focuses on engineering aspects of these modifications: electromagnetic analysis to find a suitable way to attach these plates, installation procedure to keep small tolerances, and a three-dimensional magnetic field measurement device used to obtain information of the actual shape of the vacuum vessel used as a standard installation surface. To maintain good surface conditions of the ferritic steel plates/wall that rust easily, careful treatment was executed before the installation. To reduce oxygen impurities further, a boronization system with trimethyl boron, which is safe and easy to operate, was developed.
