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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.
Y. Kamada, T. Fujita, S. Ishida, M. Kikuchi, S. Ide, T. Takizuka, H. Shirai, Y. Koide, T. Fukuda, N. Hosogane, K. Tsuchiya, T. Hatae, H. Takenaga, M. Sato, H. Nakamura, O. Naito, N. Asakura, H. Kubo, S. Higashijima, Y. Miura, R. Yoshino, K. Shimizu, T. Ozeki, T. Hirayama, M. Mori, Y. Sakamoto, Y. Kawano, A. Isayama, K. Ushigusa, Y. Ikeda, H. Kimura, T. Fujii, T. Imai, M. Nagami, S. Takeji, T. Oikawa, T. Suzuki, T. Nakano, N. Oyama, S. Sakurai, S. Konoshima, T. Sugie, K. Tobita, T. Kondoh, H. Tamai, Y. Neyatani, A. Sakasai, Y. Kusama, K. Itami, M. Shimada, H. Ninomiya, H. Urano
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 42 | Number 2 | September-November 2002 | Pages 185-254
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A227
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fusion plasma performance and confinement studies on JT-60 and JT-60U are reviewed. With the main aim of providing a physics basis for ITER and the steady-state tokamak reactors, JT-60/JT-60U has been developing and optimizing the operational concepts, and extending the discharge regimes toward sustainment of high integrated performance in the reactor relevant parameter regime. In addition to achievement of high fusion plasma performances such as the equivalent breakeven condition (QDTeq up to 1.25) and a high fusion triple product nD(0)ETi(0) = 1.5 × 1021 m-3skeV, JT-60U has demonstrated the integrated performance of high confinement, high N, full non-inductive current drive with a large fraction of bootstrap current. These favorable performances have been achieved in the two advanced operation regimes, the reversed magnetic shear (RS) and the weak magnetic shear (high-p) ELMy H modes characterized by both internal transport barriers (ITB) and edge transport barriers (ETB). The key factors in optimizing these plasmas towards high integrated performance are control of profiles of current, pressure, rotation, etc. utilizing a variety of heating, current drive, torque input, and particle control capabilities and high triangularity operation. As represented by discovery of ITBs (density ITB in the central pellet mode, ion temperature ITB in the high-p mode, and electron temperature ITB in the reversed shear mode), confinement studies in JT-60/JT-60U have been emphasizing freedom and also restriction of radial profiles of temperature and density. In addition to characterization of confinement and analyses of transport properties of the OH, the L-mode, the H-mode, the pellet mode, the high-p mode, and the RS mode, JT-60U has clarified formation conditions, spatial structures and dynamics of edge and internal transport barriers, and evaluated effects of repetitive MHD events on confinement such as sawteeth and ELMs. Through these studies, JT-60U has demonstrated applicability of the high confinement modes to ITER and the steady-state tokamak reactors.
