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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
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Latest News
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.
Shutaro Takeda, Satoshi Konishi, Yasushi Yamamoto, Ryuta Kasada, Shigeki Sakurai
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 2 | September 2015 | Pages 341-345
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-106
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study analyzed adverse effects of fusion plants on the stability of small-scale grids through simulation-based case studies. Major frequency fluctuations were observed in the event of a plant start-up and a sudden interruption of fusion electric output power, as represented by plasma disruption, suggesting difficulties in fusion plant installation to majority of countries in the future. To mitigate the adverse effects, a fusion plant combined with an energy storage was proposed and evaluated. The results indicated that large energy storage like pumped-hydro storage could successfully reduce the frequency deviations to the acceptable range. An innovative offshore pumped-hydro storage, marine inverse dam, is also discussed in this paper.
