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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. Komori, T. Morisaki, T. Mutoh, S. Sakakibara, Y. Takeiri, R. Kumazawa, S. Kubo, K. Ida, S. Morita, K. Narihara, T. Shimozuma, K. Tanaka, K. Y. Watanabe, H. Yamada, M. Yoshinuma, T. Akiyama, N. Ashikawa, M. Emoto, H. Funaba, M. Goto, T. Ido, K. Ikeda, S. Inagaki, M. Isobe, H. Igami, K. Itoh, O. Kaneko, K. Kawahata, T. Kobuchi, S. Masuzaki, K. Matsuoka, T. Minami, J. Miyazawa, S. Muto, Y. Nagayama, Y. Nakamura, H. Nakanishi, Y. Narushima, K. Nishimura, M. Nishiura, A. Nishizawa, N. Noda, S. Ohdachi, Y. Oka, M. Osakabe, N. Ohyabu, T. Ozaki, B. J. Peterson, A. Sagara, K. Saito, R. Sakamoto, K. Sato, M. Sato, T. Seki, M. Shoji, S. Sudo, N. Tamura, K. Toi, T. Tokuzawa, K. Tsumori, T. Uda, T. Watari, I. Yamada, M. Yokoyama, Y. Yoshimura, O. Motojima, LHD Experimental Group, C. D. Beidler, T. Fujita, A. Isayama, Y. Sakamoto, H. Takenaga, P. Goncharov, K. Ishii, M. Sakamoto, S. Murakami, T. Notake, N. Takeuchi, S. Okajima, M. Sasao
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 2 | August 2006 | Pages 136-145
Technical Paper | Stellarators | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1229
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Remarkable progress to access the reactor-relevant regime has been made in a recent experiment in the Large Helical Device. Optimizing the rotational transform, the average beta value of 4.3%, which is the highest record among helical devices, was achieved. The high-performance plasma with a fusion triple product up to ~2.2 × 1019 m-3keVs was sustained for >7 s by repetitive hydrogen pellet injection. With regard to steady-state operation, which is one of the key issues to realize a fusion reactor, discharges for >30 min were successfully sustained by ion cyclotron range of frequency heating with the aid of the magnetic axis swing technique to reduce the heat load to the plasma-facing component. In the discharge, the total input energy to the plasma reached 1.3 GJ, which also established a new record.
