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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.
J. F. Lyon, L. P. Ku, L. El-Guebaly, L. Bromberg, L. M. Waganer, M. C. Zarnstorff, ARIES-CS Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 3 | October 2008 | Pages 694-724
Technical Paper | Aries-Cs Special Issue | doi.org/10.13182/FST54-694
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A stellarator systems/optimization code is used to optimize the ARIES-CS fusion power plant parameters for minimum cost of electricity subject to a large number of physics, engineering, and in-vessel component constraints for a compact stellarator configuration. Different physics models, reactor component models, and costing algorithms are used to test sensitivities to models and assumptions. The most important factors determining the size of the fusion power core are the allowable neutron and radiative power fluxes to the wall, the distance needed between the edge of the plasma and the nonplanar magnetic field coils for the intervening components, and an adequate tritium breeding ratio. The magnetic field and coil parameters are determined from both plasma performance and constraints on the Nb3Sn superconductor. The same costing approach and algorithms used in previous ARIES studies are used with updated material costs. The result is a compact stellarator reactor with a major radius close to that of tokamaks. A one-dimensional power balance code is used to study the path to ignition and the effect of different plasma and confinement assumptions on plasma performance for the reference plasma and coil configuration. A number of variations are studied that affect the size and cost of the fusion power core: maximum field at the coils, component cost penalties, a different blanket and shield approach, alternative plasma and coil configurations, etc. Comparisons are made with some earlier ARIES power plant studies. A number of issues for the development of compact quasi-axisymmetric stellarators are identified.