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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.
D. A. McArthur, G. N. Hays, P. S. Pickard
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 20 | Number 4 | December 1991 | Pages 753-758
Space Nuclear Power/Propulsion | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A11946932
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The FALCON reactor-pumped laser program is investigating concepts for high power laser systems pumped directly by fission energy from a nuclear reactor. The direct pumping of laser media with fission energy offers the potential system advantages of scaling to very high laser powers with long run times, extremely compact and low-mass energy storage, and relatively simple gain generator design. Reactor pumping has been studied in the ACRR and SPR research reactor facilities at Sandia National Laboratories. Based on these experiments and extensive system analysis, large reactor-pumped laser systems have been evaluated for extraction efficiency, beam quality, and practicality (considering auxiliary power needs, radiation damage to optical components, rejection of waste heat, and expected imperfections in excitation structures). It appears that high-power reactor-pumped lasers can be developed in the near term to provide important capabilities for the exploration and utilization of space.
