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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.
Ronald Kreutz
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 3 | November 1985 | Pages 2708-2720
Technical Paper | ICF Driver Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A24692
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A summary of the investigations on pellet delivery is presented for the conceptual heavy-ion-beam-driven fusion reactor HIBALL. The results are given for the physical feasibility of pneumatic and electromagnetic pellet acceleration, and proposals are made for adequate pellet carriers. These can be utilized for any inertial confinement fusion reactor concept. A suitable value is derived for the pellet velocity by regarding the heating of the pellet by cavity radiation. A pellet velocity of 200 m/s is chosen. It is shown that for this pellet velocity the pellet tracking and synchronization of the pellet with the ion pulses are consistently feasible with respect to adequate pellet illumination by the ion beams. The proposed conceptual pellet injectors are designed for a 2-g projectile, composed of the pellet and a pellet carrier, and for an acceleration distance of 2 m. To achieve a pellet velocity of 200 m/s, a propellant gas pressure of 0.5 MPa is required for pneumatic acceleration. Using a magnetic linear accelerator with coils of 1-cm radius and 1-cm spacing, an effective magnetic induction on the axis of 1.2 T is necessary. An adequate pellet carrier is designed for each of the acceleration methods. This is a closed capsule for pneumatic acceleration and an open carrier with a ferromagnetic driving body for electromagnetic acceleration. The two injection methods are compared and evaluated with respect to the technical feasibility of the corresponding system components in order to give a concluding recommendation.