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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.
George H. Miley, S. C. Hu, V. Varadarajan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 18 | Number 4 | December 1990 | Pages 633-640
Alpha Particles in Fusion Research | doi.org/10.13182/FST90-A29256
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Alpha-particle ash accumulation in tokamaks and two possible ash control techniques are discussed. The effect of thermal alpha-particle ash accumulation on plasma performance is examined using a zero-dimensional analysis with profile corrections. Alpha-particle accumulation is shown to have serious effects on ignition requirements. An analytical model developed to predict the effect of sawtooth disruption on ash accumulation is discussed. The analytical results indicate that the sawtooth is effective when the temperature profile is parabolic or flatter. Alpha-particle ejection by a fishbone oscillation is envisaged to be helpful in ash control, and a model of the physics in a large-aspect-ratio approximation is discussed using an extended version of a Chen et al. formalism. The trapped particle destabilization of the internal kinks due to the alpha particles and a second hot-particle species is considered, and the expected oscillation frequency and growth rates are derived.