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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.
F. Najmabadi,1 R. W. Conn,1, the ARIES Team:, C. G. Bathke,5 C. B. Baxi,2 L. Bromberg,6 J. Brooks,3 E. T. Cheng,11 F. Davis,7 D. A. Ehst,3 L. A. El-Guebaly,10 G. A. Emmert,10 T. J. Dolan,4 M. Z. Hasan,1 A. Hassanein,3 J. S. Herring,4 J. A. Holmes,7 T. Hua,3 A. Hull,3 S. C. Jardin,8 C. Kessel,8 H. Y. Khater,10 R. A. Krakowski,5 J. A. Leuer,2 D. C. Lousteau,7 R. Mattis,3 T-K. Mau,1 B. W. McQuillan,2 B. Picologlou,3 F. A. Puhn,2 J. F. Santarius,10 M. Sawan,10 J. Schultz,6 K. R. Schultz,2 S. Sharafat,1 L. Snead,9 D. Steiner,9 D. J. Strickler,7 I. N. Sviatoslavsky,10 D-K. Sze,3 M. Valenti,9 K. A. Werley,5, C. P. C. Wong2
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1721-1728
Magnetic Fusion Reactor and Systems Studies | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29970
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ARIES research program is a multi-institutional effort to develop several visions of tokamak reactors with enhanced economic, safety, and environmental features. Four ARIES visions are currently planned for the ARIES program. The ARIES-I design is a DT-burning reactor based on “modest” extrapolations from the present tokamak physics database and relies on either existing technology or technology for which trends are already in place, often in programs outside fusion. The ARIES-III study focuses on the potential of tokamaks to operate with D-3He fuel system as an alternative to deuterium and tritium. Two major cost items in the ARIES-I reactor are those associated with the magnet system and the current-drive system and recirculating power. Theoretical studies of the second MHD stability regime has been on-going in order to increase the toroidal beta (reduce the magnet cost) as compared to the first-stability regime. Recent analyses indicate that because second MHD stable plasmas have a high poloidal beta, the bootstrap current is high and can exceed the equilibrium plasma current. Therefore, the ARIES-II/-IV activity, therefore, has focused on second-stability equilibria in which ∼ 100% of plasma current is produced by the bootstrap current. These equilibria have only moderate toroidal beta (∼ 4% to 6%) but the current-drive power (and cost) is small. Parametric system studies have confirmed that by operating in the second-stability regime with the constraint of ∼100% bootstrap current, the COE of ARIES-II and ARIES-IV designs are ∼ 25% lower than that of ARIES-I. The ARIES-II and ARIES-IV designs have the same fusion plasma but different fusion-power-core designs. The ARIES-II reactor uses liquid lithium as the coolant and tritium breeder and vanadium alloy as the structural material in order to study the potential of low-activation metallic blankets. The ARIES-IV reactor uses helium as the coolant, a solid tritium-breeding material, and silicon carbide composite as the structural material in order to achieve the safety and environmental characteristic of fusion. In this paper we describe the trade-off leading to the optimum regime of operation for the ARIES-II and ARIES-IV second-stability reactors and review the engineering design of the fusion power cores.
