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Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
B.A. Smith, Z. Piek, P. Thomas, R. Vieira
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 1189-1193
Ignition Device | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29504
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The status of the R&D program to evaluate low friction materials for use in the Compact Ignition Tokamak (CIT) is given. The goal is to provide material with a friction coefficient of 0.1 or lower at a 77 K interface between the central solenoid and the case of the toroidal field (TF) coil inner leg. The material must withstand 3000 machine pulses under a transverse compressive stress of about 207 MPa and be able to withstand relative surface motions of the order of 2 mm. A testing machine capable of providing 1.3 MN of compressive load and 0.44 MN of oscillating thrust in the direction of relative motion was prepared and is described in the paper together with the instrumentation and control system. Data can be taken at room temperature and at 77 K. Measured room temperature friction coefficients of the initial single stroke tests are plotted for twelve candidate materials as a function of compressive stress. All candidates exhibited friction coefficients below 0.1 for compressive stress above 172 MPa. Single stroke results on two candidates at 77 K showed friction coefficients higher than their room temperature values by a factor of about 3 at 44 MPa compression, with the coefficients tending toward their room temperature values as the compression was increased to 228 MPa. Of the seven candidates tested cyclically with a 5 mm stroke at 253 MPa and 77 K, only two types of Fiberslip materials met the requisite 3000 cycles. Friction coefficients for all materials are plotted as a function of the number of cycles.