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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.
G. H. Neilson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 27 | Number 3 | April 1995 | Pages 428-431
Advanced Tokamak And Steady-State Sustainment Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A11947121
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Tokamak Physics Experiment (TPX) is planned to develop the scientific basis for an economically competitive and continuously operating tokamak fusion power source. It has been designed to have steady-state operating capability, sufficient performance to produce reactor-like plasma configurations, and a flexible set of steady-state plasma controls. Active plasma control (e.g., current profile control, shape and position control, passive and active MHD mode stabilization, and toroidal rotation control) is a key to achieving steady stale tokamak operating conditions with enhanced beta and confinement, efficient current drive, high purity, and high reliability. Inductive scenarios and steady-state operating modes with current-drive have been studied to determine the system requirements for access and maintenance of advanced steady-state modes. Industry contractors have begun detailed engineering design of the superconducting magnets, vacuum vessel, and plasma-facing components.
