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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.
Naeem A. Tahir, Dieter H. H. Hoffmann
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 33 | Number 2 | March 1998 | Pages 164-170
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A26
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Various aspects of burn of advanced fuel inertial fusion targets are discussed, including pure deuterium as well as D-3He targets. In the case of deuterium fuel, the mass of tritium and 3He created in D-D reactions is calculated as a function of the fuel R, keeping the fuel mass constant (20 mg). It has been found that as the fuel R is varied from 40 to 80 g/cm2, the burn of 3He increases from 20 to 75%, whereas 95% of the tritium is consumed during the burn. An ignition temperature of 5 keV is considered in these calculations. It has also been found that introduction of a small fraction of tritium atoms (1%) uniformly distributed in the deuterium fuel allows a reduction in ignition temperature by more than a factor of 2. In the case of D-3He targets, an ignition temperature of the order of 10 keV is required, but introducing 1% tritium atoms in the fuel allows an ignition temperature of 3 keV.