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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.
Yoshiki Murakami*, Masayoshi Sugihara
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 24 | Number 4 | December 1993 | Pages 375-390
Technical Paper | Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST93-A30188
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Steady-state and hybrid-mode operation of a tokamak fusion reactor is investigated by power balance calculations, and operation points are optimized with respect to divertor heat load. The dependence of the divertor heat load on a variety of models is also discussed. Several schemes to reduce the heat load are investigated, and the goal of physics research and development is clarified. Hybrid-mode operation appears to be suitable for technology testing, which requires a long burn time and a high neutron wall load. The divertor heat load can be reduced to the ignition-mode level without impurity seeding if the energy confinement is enhanced by 10%. The relation between the divertor heat load and the controllability of the current profile, that is, the fraction of the beam-driven current, is also discussed.
