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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. (18R09)
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 2 | February 2007 | Pages 82-85
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems for Plasma Confinement | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1320
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Behavior of edge plasma and neutral particles are described based on visible measurement by using high-speed camera performed in the GAMMA 10 tandem mirror for the first time. In the central-cell midplane of GAMMA 10, two high-speed cameras (Ultima-SE, Photron Inc. and MEMRECAM fx-K4, NAC Inc.) were mounted and detailed time behavior of visible light emission from the plasma was investigated. In the standard plasma discharges heated by ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) wave, a short gas puffing of hydrogen (3 ms) close to the central-cell midplane was carried out to illuminate the plasma periphery and the time evolution of visible light emission from the gas cloud was captured precisely. The time behavior of the emission cloud localized near the gas puff port was found to be similar to that of H line intensity measured nearby. The light emission on the central-cell limiter accompanied by central electron cyclotron heating (c-ECH) showed a rotation in the direction of the electron diamagnetic drift. the light emission also indicates another rotation mechanism, such as ExB drift at a plasma collapse. Fully three-dimensional neutral transport simulation using a Monte-Carlo code DEGAS is applied to gas puff imaging experiment and the simulation results qualitatively explained the experimental result.
