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Latest News
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.
Jae Sung Yoon, Suk Kwon Kim, Eo Hwak Lee, Seungyon Cho, Dong Won Lee
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 3 | September 2013 | Pages 657-661
Test Blanket, Fuel Cycle, and Breeding | Proceedings of the Twentieth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE-2012) (Part 2) Nashville, Tennessee, August 27-31, 2012 | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A19167
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Korea (KO) has developed and participated in the Test Blanket Module (TBM) program in the ITER, in which Ferritic Martensitic (FM) steel was used as the structural material for the TBM first wall (FW). To develop the fabrication method for the TBM FW and verify its integrity, a half-scale sub-module mock-up was fabricated and integrity test has been prepared; A dimension of it is a 444 mm height, 260 mm width, and 435 mm depth. A mock-up was assembled by HIPping of the previous fabricated components between the welded front and back plates, and then machining these plates to form the completed sub-module FW. To investigate the deformation of the cooling channels after the fabrication of the mock-up, neutron radiography was carried using neutron radiography facility. Pressure and He leak tests were successfully performed without any leak and failure. The flow rates in each channel were measured with the conventional ultrasonic sensor but it shows non-uniform flow distribution at each channel differently from the estimation by ANSYS-CFX. HHF test conditions were evaluated through the ANSYS-CFX analysis considering the above measured flow rates in each channel and it shows non-uniform temperature distribution of the FW mock-up. We will re-assemble or fabricate the manifold and perform the flow test before HHF test in the near future.