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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.
D. Andruczyk, D. N. Ruzic, D. Curreli, J. P. Allain, HIDRA Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 497-500
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-989
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications (HIDRA) is a medium sized classical stellarator using a l = 2, m = 5 configuration with a major radius R = 0.72 m and minor radius a = 0.19 m. HIDRA will initially be operated with 26 kW of magnetron heating (2.45 GHz) and will operate with a magnetic fields B0 = 0.087 T to 0.5 T. Electron temperatures up to Te = 20 eV and densities up to ne = 1×1018 m-3 are expected with Bernstein wave heating (OXB). HIDRA has a flexible magnetic configuration due to the addition of vertical field coils. HIDRA will be used mainly in the development of new dedicated plasma material interaction experiments in a fusion type environment. Development of multi-scale and multi phase materials adaptive to extreme environment will be a focus of HIDRA and UIUC’s expertise with in-situ diagnostics of materials will open up new opportunities for innovative material testing. HIDRA will also serve as an education and training the next generation of plasma and fusion scientists and engineers. Basic plasma physics with an emphasis on plasma material interactions will be a focus of HIDRA using established diagnostic techniques as well as the development of new diagnostics for understanding the basic plasma physics and plasma material interactions.
