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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.
Haibo Liu, Kaiming Feng
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 4 | November 2008 | Pages 970-977
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1912
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Chinese helium-cooled solid breeder (CH-HCSB) test blanket module (TBM) is designed to be tested in ITER, and its aim is to validate the feasibility of a DEMO fusion reactor. The thermal-hydraulic transient analysis has to testify that the TBM and its helium cooling system (HCS) will not impact the safe operation of ITER under both normal and accidental conditions. In order to simulate the transient accidents, the TBM and HCS are modeled using the RELAP5/MOD3 system code. The steady-state results indicate that the designed TBM inlet/outlet temperatures are obtained and the temperature of first-wall (FW) structural material is below the limit. An ex-vessel loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) will induce the melting of FW beryllium armor after ~80 s of LOCA initiation, and some controlling measures have to be taken before melting. The pressurization of the vacuum vessel induced by an in-vessel LOCA is within the allowable value of the ITER design. Because of pressurization of the purge gas system, the tritium extraction system has to be isolated from the TBM quickly when an in-box LOCA happens. Based on the results, the design of the CH-HCSB TBM could be further modified in order to assure the safety of the TBM and ITER, from an engineering point of view.
