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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.
Valter Cocilovo, Giuseppe Ramogida
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 478-482
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1330608
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this work the analysis of the effects of the poloidal currents flowing on the cooling piping of the divertor armour tiles is carried out. To deal with the complexity of the problem a parametric solving scheme, starting from the nominal plasma current value, was adopted to contemplate the great variability of the possible cases deriving from the experimental data base and to compensate the lack of knowledge due to the not well assessed theory on the plasma wall interaction. Further to overcame the difficulties in modeling the real design of the piping with the necessary spatial resolution to individuate the local current concentration areas the methodology illustrated here is based on shell interfaces for solving either the electric and the mechanical problem. This approach proved to be capable to highlight the critical design areas and was useful to suggest the relative remedial corrections.