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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.
Dario Carloni, Bruno Gonfiotti, Sandro Paci, Lorenzo V. Boccaccini
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 2 | September 2015 | Pages 353-357
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-924
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The exploitation of Fusion as energy source requires also the demonstration of a limited impact in terms of risk to the staff, to the public, and to the environment, well below the limits established by international committees and national safety authorities. Therefore, a systematic safety analysis has to follow the design development to demonstrate that the safety objectives are met for each proposed solution. This analysis points out the dominant accident sequences and outlines the possible prevention, protection and mitigation actions and their associated systems. This analysis points out the dominant accident sequences and outlines the possible prevention, protection and mitigation actions and their associated systems. One of the most challenging accidents is a large break Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) of the Primary Heat Transfer System (PHTS) outside the Vacuum Vessel (VV), due to the possible consequences in terms of radiological releases to the environment. However, because of the relative small radiological inventory and to the lower decay heat density, the risk associated with a break of the primary cooling loop in a fusion reactor is lower than the risk of the same event in a fission reactor. Nevertheless the consequent peak of pressure in the Expansion Volume located within the Tokamak Building could severely impact the confinement function, hence the overall safety of the plant. For this purpose a numerical assessment of a blanket PHTS ex-vessel LOCA has been carried out considering two possible layout solutions. This analysis has been performed employing MELCOR 1.8.2 and aims to support the design of the Blanket and its PHTS with some safety-related considerations.