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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.
E. I. Moses
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 3-8
Plenary | Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-1T1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest and most energetic laser system, built for studying inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and high-energy-density (HED) science, is operational at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). A primary goal of the early experimental campaign on NIF is to create the conditions necessary to demonstrate laboratory-scale thermonuclear ignition and burn with gain. NIF experiments in support of indirect-drive ignition began late in FY2009 as part of the National Ignition Campaign (NIC) effort to achieve fusion ignition. NIC is a multi-institution partnership between LLNL, General Atomics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, and the University of Rochester Laboratory for Energetics (LLE). NIC also includes a variety of collaborators from universities, national laboratories as well as international collaborators. To date, all of the capabilities to conduct implosion experiments are in place with the goal of demonstrating ignition in the laboratory and developing a predictable fusion experimental platform. The results from experiments completed so far are encouraging and show promise for the achievement of ignition. Capsule implosion experiments at energies up to 1.3 MJ have demonstrated laser energetics, radiation temperatures, and symmetry control that scale to ignition conditions. Of particular importance is the demonstration of peak hohlraum temperatures near 300 eV with overall backscatter less than 15%. Important national security and basic science experiments have also been conducted on NIF. Successful demonstration of ignition and net energy gain will be a major step towards demonstrating the feasibility of Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) and will focus the world's attention on the possibility of IFE as a carbon-free, practically limitless energy option. This paper describes the unprecedented experimental capabilities of NIF and the results achieved so far on the path toward ignition, for stockpile stewardship, and the beginning of frontier science experiments. The paper will also address plans to transition NIF to a national user facility, providing access for researchers in the international high energy density science field.
