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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.
Y. Nakashima et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 61-66
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11575
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As the new research plan of Plasma Research Center of the University of Tsukuba, we are planning to start a study of divertor simulation under the closely resemble to actual fusion plasmas environment making an advantage of the GAMMA 10 tandem mirror and to contribute the solution for realizing the divertor in future toroidal systems. In the research plan, the concepts of two divertor devices are introduced. One has an axi-symmetric divertor configuration with separatrix (A-Div.) and the other is a high heat flux divertor simulator by using an end-mirror exit of the large tandem mirror device (E-Div.). Preparative experiments have been successfully started at the end-mirror region of GAMMA 10 and detailed behavior of end-loss particles has been investigated by using newly developed diagnostic instruments. In standard hot-ion mode plasmas (ne0 ~ 2 × 1018 m-3, Ti0 ~ 5 keV), the heat flux density of 0.8 MW/m2 and the particle flux density of 4 × 1022/sm2 were observed at 30 cm downstream of the end-mirror exit on the machine axis. It is confirmed that the heat flux density increases in proportion to the applied RF power. Superimposing the ECH pulse induces a remarkable enhancement of heat flux and a peak value in the net heat flux density of 8 MW/m2 was attained during the ECH injection, which almost comes up to the heat load level of the divertor plate of ITER. Two-dimensional visible image measurement of newly installed target plates using high-speed camera revealed a significant difference in the behavior of visible emission from plasma-material interaction. The above results give a clear prospect of generating the required performance and providing useful information for divertor studies in GAMMA 10.
