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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.
S. W. Yoon, A. C. England, W. C. Kim, H. Yonekawa, J. G. Bak, B. H. Park, J. Kim, K. I. You, Y. M. Jeon, S. H. Hahn, Y. K. Oh, J. Chung, K. D. Lee, H. J. Lee, J. A. Leuer, and N. W. Eidietis
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 65 | Number 3 | May 2014 | Pages 372-383
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-706
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
KSTAR has a nonlinear magnetic material, INCOLOY® alloy 908 (Incoloy), in toroidal field and poloidal field (PF) coil systems. The effect of Incoloy on the magnetic configuration for the plasma initiation was investigated with systematic magnetic field measurements, finite element model (FEM) calculations, and in situ measurements of the magnetic properties. The profile of the vertical field near the field-null center was measured with a vertically movable electron beam (e-beam) probe and Hall sensor arrays in addition to pickup coils in the vacuum vessel. The measured profiles of the additional fields from Incoloy in the PF coils are in good agreement with the FEM calculations. In a typical KSTAR startup configuration, the effect of Incoloy is significant. First, it degrades the connection length significantly due to an additional vertical field in the field-null region, and second, it changes the radial and vertical stabilities by modifying the radial gradient of the vertical field. Initial up-down asymmetry measurements of the vertical fields showed very small static error fields from the PF coils. Calculations suggest that the main sources of the measured downshift of the plasma column are asymmetric eddy currents in the cryostat.
