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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.
Anil Kumar, Sümer Şahin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 6 | Number 2 | September 1984 | Pages 225-239
Technical Paper | Blanket Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST84-A23154
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The impressive progress made so far toward the achievement of the physics goal of ignited fusion fuel of deuterium-tritium (D-T) is stirring the scientific community to look back and work for the earliest possible introduction of advanced fusion fuel based reactors with the ultimate objective of very clean, safe, and limitless fusion power. As the introduction of advanced fuel fusion drivers is expected to be in phases due to energetics considerations, it is quite instructive to examine the neutronic aspects of deuterium-deuterium (D-D) neutron driven hybrid blankets. The neutronics investigations of some compact hybrid blankets that could be tested experimentally are presented. The blanket designs are selected to conform to a rather small experimental chamber of the LOTUS fusion-fission hybrid facility. The parallelepiped-shaped blankets are driven by a (D-D) neutron source from one side. The fertile fuel is either ThO2, natural UO2, or LOTUS UO2. The tritium breeders are chosen from lithium, LiAlO2, or Li2O. The relative performances of different fertile fuels and tritium breeders are compared. The performance characteristics of ThO2 blankets driven by (D-T) and (D-D) neutrons are compared. The improvement in performance characteristics obtained by the introduction of actinides as multipliers with ThO2 hybrid blankets is also investigated.
