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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.B Stephens, S.W. Haan, D.C. Wilson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 226-233
Technical Paper | Fourteenth Target Fabrication Specialists' Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A17904
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Successful ignition in NIF will require targets that meet stringent standards as to symmetry, composition, and dimensions. We describe here the current understanding of specifications for baseline indirect drive targets of each of the three types of ablators: beryllium, polyimide, and plasma polymer. These specifications include the range of values for all targets of each group, and the variation in value allowed in a specific target of that group. They cover all of the components which make up a target, and which are critical to an implosion: the hohlraum and its components — windows, capsule support foil and gas fill — and the shell and its DT ice layer. These specifications are preliminary and incomplete; they will necessarily evolve with design details and with increasing understanding of target dynamics. They are compiled here as a reference for the ICF community and a basis on which to plan future work: to fill in the gaps and to develop thenecessary characterization techniques. Future work will also include the requirements for direct drive targets.