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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.
Masami Fujiwara, Nobuyoshi Ohyabu, Keisuke Matsuoka, Shoichi Okamura, Osamu Motojima, Tokuhiro Obiki, Fumimichi Sano, Katsumi Kondo, Masahiro Wakatani, Tohru Mizuuchi, Kiyoshi Hanatani, Yuji Nakamura, Kazunobu Nagasaki, Hiroyuki Okada, Sakae Besshou, Masahiko Nakasuga
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 42 | Number 1 | July 2002 | Pages 32-49
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A211
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experimental results are summarized for major helical devices in Japan: Large Helical Device (LHD), Compact Helical System (CHS), and Heliotron J. The LHD and CHS have planar magnetic axes, while Heliotron J has a nonplanar magnetic axis.The LHD, the largest superconducting device in the world, has the following machine parameters: major radius R of 3.9 m, average minor radius a of 0.6 m, magnetic field on axis B of 3 T, multipolarity l of 2, toroidal period number m of 10, and auxiliary heating power P of ~14 MW. The LHD achieved the maximum stored energy Wp dia of > 1 MJ, the maximum value of the volume averaged beta <dia*gt; of >3.0% at B of 0.5 T, high confinement time E of 0.3 s at Te(0) of 1.1 keV and <ne> of 6.5 × 1019 m-3, and long pulse operations up to 120 s at high temperature.The CHS has the following machine parameters: R = 1 m, a = 0.2 m, l = 2, and m = 8. The parameters of neutral beam heated plasmas are in the range with <ne> of ~4 to 5 × 1019 m-3, Te(0) of 500 to 700 eV, and energy confinement time of several milliseconds. Progress has been made in studies of bifurcation phenomena of electric potential, neoclassical internal transport barriers, and plasma flows in the toroidal and poloidal directions.The most important achievement from recent CHS and LHD experiments is to realize the internal transport barriers on the basis of potential bifurcation.Heliotron J, which was converted from the Heliotron E (H-E) device, employs a helical magnetic axis by the use of l = 1 continuous helical coil and auxiliary coils such as poloidal and toroidal coils. The machine parameters are as follows: R = 1.2 m, a = 0.1 to 0.2 m, and B = 1 to 1.5 T. Initial results show the maximum stored energy Wp ~ 0.7 kJ and <> ~ 0.2%.The range of plasma parameters has been greatly expanded by the LHD, CHS, H-E, and Heliotron J experiments. The confinement data in helical devices are scaled empirically as ISS-95 (International Stellarator Scaling), and plasma performance is comparable with that in tokamaks.
