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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.
Stephen C. Jardin, Charles E. Kessel, Dale Meade, Charles L. Neumeyer, Jr.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 43 | Number 2 | March 2003 | Pages 161-175
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A257
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new burning plasma systems code has been developed for analysis of a next step compact burning plasma experiment with copper-alloy magnet technology. Two classes of configurations are considered: type A, with the toroidal field (TF) coils and ohmic heating (OH) coils unlinked, and type B, with the TF and OH coils linked. Curves of the minimizing major radius as a function of aspect ratio R(A) are obtained for each configuration type for typical parameters. These curves represent, to first order, cost-minimizing curves. The type B curves always lie below the type A curves for the same physics parameters, indicating that they lead to a more compact design. However, the fact that the type A OH and TF magnets are not linked presents fewer engineering challenges and should lead to a more reliable design. Both the type A and type B curves have a minimum in major radius R at a minimizing aspect ratio A typically above 2.8 and at high values of magnetic field B above 10 T. The minimizing A occurs at larger values for longer pulse and higher performance devices. The larger A and higher B design points also have the feature that the ratio of the discharge time to the current redistribution time is largest so that steady-state operation can be more realistically prototyped. A sensitivity study is presented for the baseline type A configuration showing the dependence of the results on the parameters held fixed for the minimization study.