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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.
Xiang Gao
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 27 | Number 3 | April 1995 | Pages 477-480
Confinement and Transport Studies | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A11947132
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An improved confinement has been observed on HT-6M tokamak after application of Edge Ohmic Heating (EOH) which makes plasma current rapidly ramp up from an initial steady state (Ip=55 kA) within a small time scale (0.4 ms) to a second steady state (Ip=60 kA) with a ramp rate of 12 MA/sec. The improved confinement is characterized by (a) increased average density ne; (b) reduced Hα radiation; (c) reduced density fluctuations both in the center and at the edge; (d) a steeper ne and Te profile at the edge; (e) the changed profiles of plasma parameters ne(r), q(r) and j(r); (f) transferred the oscillation modes of the soft-X ray signals from Mirnov fluctuation (12 kHz) to sawtooth oscillation (1.7 kHz). The changes of edge fluctuation, radial electric field and bremsstrahlung during EOH were measured and discussed in details. The measured values of βp+1i/2 and soft-X ray sawtooth inversion radius implied the anomalous current penetration.
