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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.
Kenneth Evans, Jr., Charles C. Baker, Jeffrey N. Brooks, Robert G. Clemmer, David A. Ehst, Patricia A. Finn, Harold Herman, Jungchung Jung, Richard F. Mattas, Balabhadra Misra, Dale L. Smith, Herbert C. Stevens, Larry R. Turner, Robert B. Wehrle, Kevin M. Barry, Albert E. Bolon, Robert T. McGrath, Lester M. Waganer
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 226-236
Technical Paper | Special Section Content / Fusion Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST4-2P1-226
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
WILDCAT is a conceptual design of a catalyzed deuterium-deuterium tokamak commercial fusion reactor. WILDCAT utilizes the beneficial features of no tritium breeding, while not extrapolating unnecessarily from existing deuterium-tritium (D-T) designs. The reactor is larger and has higher magnetic fields and plasma pressures than typical D-T devices. It is more costly, but eliminates problems associated with tritium breeding and has tritium inventories and throughputs approximately two orders of magnitude less than typical D-T reactors. There are both a steady-state version with Alfvén-wave current drive and a pulsed version. Extensive comparison with D-T devices has been made, and cost and safety analyses have been included. All of the major reactor systems have been worked out to a level of detail appropriate to a complete conceptual design.