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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.
C. E. Thomas, Jr., J. H. Harris, G. R. Haste, C. C. Klepper, J. T. Hogan, S. Tobin, F. W. Baity, R. C. Isler, T. Uckan, D. B. Batchelor, M. D. Carter, P. M. Ryan, D. J. Hoffman, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Fusion Energy Division Team, B. Saoutic, B. Beaumont, A. Becoulet, H. Kuus, D. Fraboulet, A. Grosman, D. Guilhem, W. Hess, J. Walter, T. Loarer, M. Chatelier, Equipe Tore Supra
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 1 | September 1996 | Pages 1-39
Technical Paper | Plasma Heating System | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A30760
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Understanding ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) antenna interaction with the edge/scrape-off-layer (SOL) plasma is crucial to building antennas that can survive long-pulse or steady-state high-power operation in plasmas. The global effects of ICRF/edge interactions are discussed. The present knowledge of ICRF-induced sheath interactions with the edge and SOL plasmas in magnetic fusion experiments is quantitatively reviewed and added to. The design principles and equations governing plasma heat loading and the sputtering of Faraday shields and the bumper limiters of ICRF antennas for long-pulse and steady-state devices are presented. Electrostatic sheaths on Faraday shields and bumper limiters are discussed, and an analytic estimate of the induced direct-current (dc) plasma potential at the lateral protection (bumper limiters) of ICRF antennas is given. This is a new result. This estimated dc voltage is used to give the total power flow to the lateral protection, and an expression for the power flux is given—also with new results. Equations to use in estimating impurity production (sputtering) and principles for minimizing impurity production are reviewed. Similar equations and estimates for electromotive radio-frequency sheaths are given, and new scaling laws for the dc voltage and power flow to the ICRF antenna lateral protection due to electromotive sheaths are proposed. The initial results from the ICRF/edge interaction experiments on Tore Supra are presented and discussed in light of the theoretical and heuristic results given.
