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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.
Ya. I. Kolesnichenko, Yu. V. Yakovenko
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 18 | Number 4 | December 1990 | Pages 597-605
Alpha Particles in Fusion Research | doi.org/10.13182/FST90-A29252
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The toroidal rotation of a plasma with alpha particles is studied. The various mechanisms and factors of alpha-particle influence on rotation are considered: (a) the difference between the actual radial profile shape of the alpha particles and the profile shape of alpha-particle production; (b) the finite relaxation times of the toroidal angular momentum for the various components of a fusion plasma; and (c) the non-zero average longitudinal velocity of alpha particles escaping from a plasma. The alpha-particle longitudinal current in the peripheral region of an International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor-like tokamak is found, using the assumption that the alpha-particle radial distribution is determined by the diffusion of the toroidally trapped particles.