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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.
T.L. Grimm, K.E. Kreischer, W.C. Guss, R.J. Temkin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1648-1653
Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29957
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A 200–300 GHz high power pulsed gyrotron oscillator has recently been operated in a 14 T Bitter magnet. The design of this pulsed gyrotron is based on continuous wave (CW) constraints. A single cylindrical waveguide cavity with linear tapers on each end was tested using two magnetron injection guns (MIG). The first produces a large electron beam which excites whispering gallery modes and the second produces a smaller beam that will couple to volume modes. The highest output power of 970 kW was generated at 229 GHz in the TE34,6 using the large MIG with a 59 A, 92 kV electron beam. This corresponds to an efficiency of 18% which was the highest produced in this mode. Similar efficiencies were obtained at 202 and 213 GHz using the same MIG and at 290 GHz using both the large and small MIG. The experimental power and efficiency is about a factor of two below the single mode theoretical predictions, even at low current. A detailed parameterization of the TE34,6 mode's operating range, measurements of the beam's velocity ratio (α), and comparison to previous high frequency work at MIT imply that mode competition is one important cause of the low experimental power and efficiency.