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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.
David B. Harris, Norman A. Kurnit, Dennis D. Lowenthal, Russell G. Berger, John M. Eggleston, James J. Ewing, Mark J. Kushner, Lester M. Waganer, David A. Bowers, David S. Zuckerman
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 11 | Number 3 | May 1987 | Pages 705-731
Technical Paper | KrF Laser | doi.org/10.13182/FST87-A25044
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The development of KrF lasers has proceeded from the small lasers invented in 1975 to the 10-kJ large amplifier module at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The future KrF laser-fusion drivers required for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) development and commercial applications, starting with single-main-amplifier laser systems in the 100- to 300-kJ range, through multimegajoule single-pulse target demonstration facilities, to repetitively pulsed drivers for electric power plants are examined. Two different types of KrF lasers are currently being analyzed as potential laser-fusion drivers: large electron-beam (e-beam)-pumped amplifiers using pure optical multiplexing for pulse compression and small e-beam sustained discharge lasers using a hybrid pulse compression technique. Both types of KrF lasers appear able to satisfy all of the requirements for commercial-applications ICF drivers, including cost, efficiency, pulse shaping, energy scaling, repetition rate, reliability, and target coupling. The KrF driver can effectively operate at efficiencies >10% and can contribute < 10 mill/kWh to the cost of electric power production, with the total estimated cost of electricity from either KrF laser system being comparable (25 to 50 mill/kWh, 1985 dollars) with the cost from other methods of electric power production.
