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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.
Tore Supra Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 29 | Number 4 | July 1996 | Pages 417-448
Technical Paper | First-Wall Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A30688
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In view of high-power, long-pulse steady-state operation, Tore Supra has incorporated in its design the active control of heat and particles in a realistic environment. In the early experimental phase of Tore Supra, the first generation of plasma-facing components was tested, and these tests provided much physics and technological information and illuminated various operational difficulties. In particular, these experiments revealed the weakness of the graphite-to-metal brazing process originally adopted for actively cooled high-heat-flux components. Consequently, a new inner-wall technology was developed in 1994 and is to be tested in 1995–1996 with a totally rebuilt 40-deg toroidal sector. A carbon-fiber—reinforced carbon-metal compound is based on the newest brazing technology and rigorous quality control. Components such as the toroidal pump limiter and the guard limiters of plasma-heating antennas are being developed in the same way. For structures where brazing is difficult, boron carbide-coated components have been developed and installed in Tore Supra. For lower heat fluxes, a bolted concept has been designed and tested. The influence of inner-first-wall misalignment in Tore Supra on the power exhaust limitation of brazed components has been studied. Results from the technological development for the different power exhaust systems and the associated experimental knowledge obtained during plasma operation in Tore Supra are presented.