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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.
Bin Zhang, Shi Li, Sheng Zhang, Yebin Chen, Liqun Hu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 1 | July 2017 | Pages 91-98
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1319717
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Radial X-ray camera (RXC) is a diagnostic for the ITER tokamak. During baking and operation of ITER, the detector environment temperature will be up to 240°C, whereas the detectors must be kept below 70°C. Therefore, cooling of the detectors mounted in the camera is critical and necessary. In order to verify the effect of gas cooling for RXC detectors, a relevant test has been designed. Since the outcome of this test will be the supply of the RXC cooling system, the ITER Instrument and Control strategy was selected. Therefore, a Data Acquisition (DAQ) system was developed based on the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) framework, which implements functions for real-time data acquisition, temperature control, supervision, and archiving. Moreover, it is easy to configure control information according to user requirements. Also, some linear devices were used in the reconfiguration of EPICS. This technical note presents the entire architecture of the DAQ system and the details on the design of EPICS. The system has been implemented, and has provided reliable data for the experiment.
