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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.
Takuro Honda, Takashi Okazaki, Yasushi Seki, Isao Aoki, Tomoaki Kunugi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 1 | September 1996 | Pages 95-103
Technical Paper | Safety and Environmental Aspect | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A30766
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Dust production due to plasma disruptions has been investigated using a safety analysis code, which can calculate the plasma dynamics and thermal characteristics of fusion reactor structures simultaneously. We selected two fusion reactor designs in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), i.e., the Engineering Design Activity (EDA) and the Conceptual Design Activity (CDA). The ITER/EDA will adopt beryllium for the plasma-facing component (PFC), and the ITER/CDA adopted graphite for PFC. The beryllium dust production in the ITER/EDA reactor will range from 7.0 to 10.3 kg/disruption, which strongly depends on vapor shield effects. The carbon dust production in the ITER/CDA reactor will range from 1.9 to 2.4 kg/disruption. However, the carbon dust will increase by as much as a factor of 2 to 5 because the effective latent heat of graphite has a large uncertainty under the extremely high heat flux during disruptions. For both, dust production from the first wall depends on the current quench time during disruptions. If the current quench time can be extended, the beryllium dust from the first wall will be minimized, and the carbon dust from there will be negligible.