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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.
Ming-Jiu Ni, Shi-Jing Xu, Zeng-Hui Wang, Nian-Mei Zhang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 292-297
In-Vessel Components - FW, Blanket, Shield & VV | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12368
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A direct simulation of 3D liquid metal flow in the DCLL (Dual Coolant Lead Lithium) blanket is conducted to study the distribution of pressure and velocity influenced by different material properties of FCI (Flow Channel Insert). A consistent and conservative scheme and projection method on a collocated mesh (Ni et al., J Comp Phys 227 (2007)174-204 and 227 (2007) 205-228) are employed to solve the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with the Lorentz force included based on an electrical potential formula. As an illustration, three blanket flows have been considered: liquid metal flow in a channel without FCI, with a silicon carbide FCI and with a FCI made of conductive material. It is shown that liquid metal flows in blanket with FCI are 3D developing flows. It is verified that: MHD pressure drop can be reduced by using silicon carbide FCI; PES (Pressure Equilibrium Slot) can balance the pressure difference between two sides of FCI near the slot but the pressure difference is still very large far away from PES; conductive FCI cannot reduce MHD pressure drop. Due to the leakage of current circuit across the slot, with PES opened at one side, a strong reversed velocity is observed in PES. The comparison of velocity distribution between numerical simulation and experiment from LEVI (Xu et al., ISFNT-9, 2009) is conducted. The difference shows that further experimental and numerical analysis is needed.
