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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.
S.J. Brereton
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 2 | March 1992 | Pages 926-931
Material; Storage and Processing | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29869
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The tritium inventory in a D-T fusion experiment, like ITER, may be the major hazard onsite. This tritium is distributed throughout various systems and components. A major thrust of safety work has been aimed at reducing these tritium inventories, or at least at minimizing the amount of tritium that could be mobilized. I have developed models for a time-dependent fuel cycle systems code, which will aid in directing designers towards safer, lower inventory designs. The code will provide a self-consistent picture of system interactions and system interdependencies, and provide a better understanding of how tritium inventories are influenced. A “systems” approach is valuable in that a wide range of parameters can be studied, and more promising regions of parameter space can be identified. Ultimately, designers can use this information to specify a machine with minimum tritium inventory, given various constraints. Here, I discuss the models that describe tritium inventory in various components as a function of system parameters, and the unique capabilities of a code that will implement them. The models are time dependent and reflect a level of detail consistent with a systems type of analysis. The models support both a stand-alone Tritium Systems Code, and a module for the SUPERCODE, a time-dependent tokamak systems code. Through both versions, we should gain a better understanding of the interactions among the various components of the fuel cycle systems.