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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.
Osamu Mitarai, Hiroki Hasuyama, Yoshihisa Wakuta
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 4 | July 1992 | Pages 2265-2283
Technical Paper | Special Issue on D-He Fusion / D-3He/Fusion Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29720
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Ignition characteristics in deuterium-tritium (D-T) and D-3He tokamak reactors with spin-polarized fuels are presented by using the ignition access condition based on the generalized saddle point in the representation of . Enhancement of the D-T fusion cross section due to parallel spin polarization with respect to the magnetic field can reduce the confinement enhancement factor required for reaching ignition by ∼20% if fusion particle loss is not induced by the anisotropic fusion particle distribution. Spin polarization is thus effective when a D-T reactor is marginal for ignition. In D-3He fusion, it is more advantageous to use spin-polarized fuel in the heating phase than in the case of D-T fusion. The ignition toroidal beta value can be reduced by spin polarization from 12 ± 0.8 to 5.3 ± 0.5% in D-3He = 2:1 plasma and from 17 ± 0.5 to 6.5 ± 0.2% in D-3He = 1:1 plasma. The auxiliary heating power to reach ignition, which is rather large for D-3He fusion, can be reduced by a factor of 2 to 3 compared with the unpolarized case. For example, in the D-3He Tokamak Reactor, 350 MW of auxiliary heating power for D:3He = 2:1 and Ti(0)/Te(0) = 1 without spin polarization can be reduced to 190 MW with complete polarization of the deuterium and 3He ions. The deuterium-deuterium fusion suppression effect, if it exists, does not alter the ignition condition much. Various problems related to the spin polarization scheme are also discussed.
