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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.
Ahmed Hassanein
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 713-719
Divertor Design and Experiments | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963020
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Damage to plasma-facing components and structural materials of fusion reactors during abnormal plasma instabilities such as hard disruptions, edge-localized modes (ELMs), and vertical displacement events (VDEs) is considered a serious life-limiting concern for these components and materials. Plasma-facing components (PFCs) such as the divertor, limiter, and first wall will be subjected to intense energy deposition during these plasma instabilities. High erosion losses of material surfaces, large temperature increases in structural materials, and high heat flux levels and possible burnout of coolant tubes are critical issues that severely limit component lifetime and therefore diminish reactor safety and economics.
A comprehensive model that integrates various stages of plasma interaction with plasma-facing materials (PFMs) is extended to analyze and evaluate the damage that results from various plasma instabilities. Models for thermal evolution and phase change of a multilayer structural material, for the developed vapor cloud magnetohydrodynamics above the surface of the material, and for calculating the resulting radiation and its transport through this vapor cloud due to plasma/vapor interaction are dynamically coupled in a self-consistent way to evaluate various aspects of detailed time-dependent responses of PFMs. The extent of the damage to PFMs, structural materials, and coolant channels depends mainly on the total deposited plasma energy, deposition time, and the coating or surface material. During short disruption events (τd ≤ 1 ms), the initially intense evaporated material can significantly shield the PFM and reduce its further erosion. When plasma instabilities occur at longer durations, however, such as in VDEs (τd=100-300 ms), no significant self-shielding is expected; therefore, serious erosion and melting can occur. In addition, hydrodynamic instabilities and other mechanisms will further erode melt layers of metallic PFMs. Plasma instabilities of longer duration may also allow more time for conduction of deposited plasma energy from the surface to the structural material and finally to the coolant channels, where it can cause burnout. These events are analyzed parametrically for the expected range of plasma parameters for various surface materials such as beryllium, carbon, and tungsten, and for structural materials such as copper.
