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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.
Tonio Pinna, Fabio Borgognoni
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 3 | April 2015 | Pages 531-534
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T72
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two of the key elements of the engineering development of the DEMO reactor are the definitions of reliability and availability requirements (or targets). The availability target for a hypothesized Fuel Cycle has been analysed as a test case. The analysis has been done on the basis of the experience gained in operating existing tokamak fusion reactors and developing the ITER design. Plant Breakdown Structure (PBS) and Functional Breakdown Structure (FBS) related to the DEMO Fuel Cycle and correlations between PBS and FBS have been identified. At first, a set of availability targets has been allocated to the various systems on the basis of their operating, protection and safety functions. 75% and 85% of availability has been allocated to the operating functions of fuelling system and tritium plant respectively. 99% of availability has been allocated to the overall systems in executing their safety functions. The chances of the systems to achieve the allocated targets have then been investigated through a Failure Mode and Effect Analysis and Reliability Block Diagram analysis. The following results have been obtained: i) the target of 75% for the operations of the fuelling system looks reasonable, while the target of 85% for the operations of the whole tritium plant should be reduced to 80%, even though all the tritium plant systems can individually reach quite high availability targets, over 90% - 95%; ii) all the DEMO Fuel Cycle systems can reach the target of 99% in accomplishing their safety functions.