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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.
James P. Blanchard, Carl J. Martin, Mark Tillack, Xueren Wang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 313-317
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-A12372
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One of the primary failure mechanisms addressed by structural design rules for fusion components is ratcheting, the accumulation of strain with cyclic loads. If a component is loaded such that ratcheting occurs, failure can be expected in relatively short order, so design rules must ensure that the behavior is avoided. In this paper, we present finite element models for cyclic loading of typical fusion structures and compare the results to analytical models for simple geometries and design rules intended for more complex geometries. Both material and structural ratcheting is considered. For structural ratcheting, the 3Sm rule employed in the ITER Structural Design Criteria is found to be unduly conservative and the accompanying Bree rules are found, in some cases, to be non-conservative. Significant advantage can be gained from using fully plastic models to avoid ratcheting.