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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.
R. Ikezoe et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 2013 | Pages 58-63
doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A16874
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A two-channel reflectometer has been developed and successfully applied to the GAMMA10 central cell to investigate the spatial structure of spontaneously excited Alfven ion-cyclotron (AIC) waves. At the frequencies of externally applied ICRF waves and AIC waves, good correlations of well above the statistical noise level are obtained between two density fluctuations at axially separated positions in the central cell. Density fluctuations at various radial positions and two axially separated positions show that the power distribution among the AIC waves changes much both in radial and axial directions especially in the earlier period just after the excitation and in the core region of r/a < 0.3. Phase differences of the AIC waves at axially separated positions show features of the transformation of the AIC waves from propagating to standing waves. The pass of the node of the standing wave is also observed. The time of the pass is different by AIC waves, which clearly indicates difference of the axial wavelengths of the simultaneously excited AIC waves.