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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.
Gen Chen, Yuzhou Mao, Shuai Yuan, Kai Zhang, Yanping Zhao
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 2 | February 2017 | Pages 150-161
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-214
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) heating system of the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is characterized by high radio-frequency (RF) power up to 12 MW and wide frequency range over 25 to 70 MHz. A high RF power transmission system composed of a liquid impedance matching device, ceramic feedthrough, decoupler, and ICRF heating antenna with four straps has been in operation for some years. In a high-power ICRF experiment, one issue that needs to be solved is the high RF voltage on the coaxial transmission line between the ICRF antenna and the impedance matching device, which is caused by low antenna loading resistance compared to the characteristic impedance of the transmission line. A stub tuner is employed to reduce the RF voltage in the EAST ICRF power transmission system. Two methods to reduce RF voltage using short-circuited and open-circuited stub tuners are introduced in detail. The optimized position and length of the stub tuner are analyzed and calculated to achieve a smaller voltage reduction ratio (VRR) on the transmission line. The test with the stub tuner to reduce the RF voltage of the transmission line is carried out, and a RF VRR of ~0.57 is achieved. The RF voltage on the transmission line is significantly reduced, and the capability of the transmission power is obviously improved. Ohmic losses caused by the surface resistance of the conductor of the coaxial transmission line are also decreased, and the probability of breakdown within the transmission line is reduced under high RF power operation.