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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.
J. J. MacFarlane, R. R. Peterson, P. Wang, G. A. Moses
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 3 | November 1994 | Pages 886-890
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor, Reactor Target, and Driver | Proceedings of the Eleventh Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy New Orleans, Louisiana June 19-23, 1994 | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A40266
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We present results from radiation-hydrodynamics calculations which show the central role resonant self-absorption plays in reducing radiative energy loss rates in high-gain ICF target chamber plasmas. Calculations were performed using a non-LTE radiative transfer model which we have recently coupled to our target chamber radiation-hydrodynamics code. The lower radiation fluxes escaping the plasma, which occur due to the self-absorption of line radiation in their optically thick cores, lead to significantly lower temperature increases at the surface of the target chamber first wall. The calculations were performed for the SIRIUS-P laser-driven direct-drive ICF power reactor. In this conceptual design study, high-gain targets release approximately 400 MJ of energy in the center of a gas-filled target chamber. The target debris ions and x-rays are stopped in the gas, and the energy is reradiated to the chamber wall over a much longer time scale. Because the time scales are comparable to the time it takes to thermally conduct energy away from the first surface, the thermal stresses and erosion rates for the first wall are greatly reduced.