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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.
D. Dobrott
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 339-347
Alternate Fuels | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22888
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Alternate fusion fuels, i.e., fuels based on cycles other than d-t, are advocated because of apparent safety and environmental advantages, such as low activation of reactor materials and the relaxation of the requirement for tritium breeding that one needs for a d-t fusion reactor. Nevertheless, the lower fusion reaction rates and the higher required operating temperatures have suggested that the reactor performance would be inferior to that of a d-t reactor. This question of reactor performance relative to fuel cycle is examined here in the restricted context d-t versus d-d (with variations) In tokamaks, reversed-field pinches and tandem mirrors, although results relative to other concepts and cycles are reviewed. Each reactor concept is assessed relative to the relevant physics, engineering, cost and safety issues. There are distinct physics and technical leverages for each of the concepts, but many common features as well. For example, all three concepts require no blanket tritium breeding and have a much lower tritium inventory than their d-t counterparts, as well as, longer blanket lifetime, greater blanket efficiency, higher neutron energy multiplication and less activation. The physics constraints are not necessarily greater and cost per net power output between d-t and d-d reactors can be comparable.