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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.
M. Smith, Y. Zhai, A. Jariwala, T. Edgemon, L. Konkel, M. Smiley, J. Vasquez, A. L. Verlaan, J. A. C. Heijmans
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 640-644
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1352423
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Upper Visible Infrared Wide Angle Viewing System (UWAVS) is a diagnostic used in five upper ports of ITER. Each UWAVS provides visible and infrared views of various sections of the divertor. A single UWAVS is designed in three main sections: in-vessel, interspace and port cell assemblies. Each assembly utilizes multiple steering and relay mirrors to direct the in-vessel light out of the tokamak to the port cell camera sensors.
For the in-vessel components, the transient electro-magnetic (EM) environment resulting from the ITER magnet operation and plasma events induces design driving Lorentz forces. As such, all in-vessel systems require detailed electro-magnetic finite element analysis (FEA) to derive the resulting time dependent Lorentz loads.
ANSYS Maxwell software was used to perform transient electro-magnetic simulations of the UWAVS in ITER upper port 14. A 20 degree sector, cyclic symmetric model was employed and included, inner and outer vacuum vessel, blanket shield modules, diagnostic fist wall (DFW) and shield module (DSM), upper port plug structure, DSM shield blocks, and a detailed model of the UWAVS in-vessel assembly.
The resulting data includes eddy current density and vector plots along with force and moment summation for various UWAVS components. Front end optical components are specifically reported as these components have significant EM loads.