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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.
Sergei Yu. Medvedev, Sergei E. Sharapov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 22 | Number 4 | December 1992 | Pages 470-473
Alpha-Particle Special | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A30082
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The stabilizing compressibility effect of trapped alpha particles on low-frequency magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) ballooning modes (Re ω ≪ Im ω) in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is investigated. It is found that this stabilization is the most effective one in the central region of the plasma column, where the unstable region of MHD ballooning modes is located for typical flat q(ψ) profiles in ITER. The alpha-particle distribution function is supposed to be isotropic and slowing down in energy. It has been found that the values of βα/βtotal ≅ 1.5 to 2.0% are sufficient to stabilize ballooning modes in the central low-shear region for the peaked pressure profiles [P(ψ) = P(0)(1 − ψ)γ] proposed for ITER. The value of βα/βtotal remains almost unchanged to suppress the instability for all γ = 1.0 to 2.0.
