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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.
A. A. Shoshin et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 57-60
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11574
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper presents experimental investigations of plasma-surface interaction and materials behavior under plasma loads relevant to type I ITER ELMs. The experiments were performed with quasi-stationary plasma accelerator QSPA Kh-50 and multi-mirror trap GOL-3 devices located in Kharkov (Ukraine) and Novosibirsk (Russia) respectively. QSPA generated repetitive plasma streams of duration 0.25 ms and the energy density up to 2.5 MJ/m2. In GOL-3 multi-mirror trap plasma was heated up to temperature of 2-4 keV by a high power relativistic electron beam. Energy density in the exhaust plasma stream vary from 0.5 to 30 MJ/m2. Surface patterns of the targets exposed by QSPA and GOL-3 plasma are analyzed. Cracking, development of tungsten surface morphology and droplets splashing are discussed. It is shown that under an applied energy density loads (>1 MJ/m2) the evolution of surface morphology due to plasma irradiation are similar for two devices in spite of the qualitative differences of particles energy of the impact plasma streams. Formation of three different crack networks with typical cell sizes of 1000, 10 and 0.3 m are identified after irradiation of tungsten surface. Experiments show that major cracks (cell size of 1000 m) are attributed to a ductile-to-brittle transition. The key role of heat loads magnitude on development of surface due to powerful plasma impacts is demonstrated.
