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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.
M. Reinhart et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 2013 | Pages 201-204
doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A16905
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this work we investigate the applicability of several optical emission spectroscopy methods to measure the electron density and temperature in deuterium plasma in the linear plasma generator PSI-2. The spectroscopy measurements are realized by an imaging spectrometer which delivers radial profiles of the emission lines. With the application of an inverse Abel transformation, spatially resolved measurements are obtained.The spectroscopy methods divide into two groups: The measurement of ne by Balmer line ratios and by the rotational temperature of molecules is only suitable for ionizing plasmas; the measurement of ne by the Stark broadening of Paschen lines and of Te by Paschen line ratios is only applicable for recombining plasmas.For the evaluation of these methods, different plasma conditions are produced in PSI-2. The plasma generator is capable of producing deuterium plasmas with electron densities of up to 1013 cm-3 and electron temperatures of up to 20 eV. Additional measurements with a Langmuir double probe are conducted for comparison with the spectroscopy measurements.A collisional-radiative model in the Yacora code is used to compare measured Balmer line emissions with the calculation and to investigate which reaction channels influence the recombination in PSI-2.
