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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.
E.A. Mogahed, I.N. Sviatoslavsky
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 1546-1551
ITER | Proceedings of the Ninth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Oak Brook, Illinois, October 7-11, 1990) | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29561
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Thermal analyses for the U.S. inboard and outboard shield and first wall of ITER have been performed utilizing the nuclear heating results obtained from the neutronics calculations. Several radial build configurations of the shield have been thermally analyzed. Different routes for the coolant are investigated to reduce the maximum temperature in shielding material which in turn reduces thermal expansion effects during ITER operation. The maximum thermal stresses are within the prescribed limits for the shield material at the maximum operating temperatures.
