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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.
Chas. W. von Rosenberg, Jr.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1600-1604
Inertial Fusion Driver | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29948
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The laser driver system we describe is coupled to the SOMBRERO reactor concept. This is the Inertial Fusion for Energy (IFE) design concept generated by the W.J. Schafer Team for a recent DOE study1. The nominal plant design has 1 GW electrical output and requires a KrF laser driver system that supplies 3.4 MJ per pulse onto a spherically symmetric, direct drive target, at a repetition rate of 6.7 pps. We describe an architecture which results from the constraints of what must be supplied at the target, coupled with a final amplifier design which makes use of e-beam pumped, angularly multiplexed, 60 kJ final amplifier cavities, recent technology advancements in e-beams and pulsed power, and which has been optimized for system efficiency. Driver system efficiency of more than 7% (“wall plug”), and an effective efficiency of more than 9%, obtained through utilization of laser waste heat, are projected.
