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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.
Robert N. Morris, R. H. Fowler, James A. Rome, T. J. Schlagel
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 12 | Number 2 | September 1987 | Pages 281-292
Plasma Heating Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST87-A11963786
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The application of the existing Impurity Study Experiment (ISX-B) neutral beam injectors for the Advanced Toroidal Facility is studied. New techniques are required to handle the complicated stellarator geometry of both the vacuum vessel and the plasma. The power delivered to the plasma is found to be a strong function of the beam divergence but only a weak function of the beam focal length. Monte Carlo methods were used to follow the injected particles from the injector until they thermalized in the plasma. An aperture in the beam line is required to prevent excessive heating of the vacuum vessel by the injected beam. Shine-through can be a serious problem if very low density start-ups are necessary. Reasonable assumptions on beam divergence yield an estimate of over 1 MW of power absorbed by the plasma. Preliminary calculations indicate that there will be no excessive fast ion losses.
