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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.
Yukio Fujiwara, Yoshihiro Ohara, Takashi Inoue, Yoshikazu Okumura, Masahiro Tanii, Kenji Miyamoto, Keiichiro Shibata, Kazuhiro Watanabe, Naoki Miyamoto, Satoshi Suzuki
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 810-814
Plasma Fuelingand Heating, Control, and Currentdrive | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963036
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A 1 MeV, 50 MW Negative-ion-based Neutral Beam Injector (N-NBI) is proposed as a promising heating and current drive system for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The most crucial part of the ITER N-NBI is a negative ion source/accelerator, which is required to produce 1 MeV, 40 A D'ion beams for longer than 1000 s. The engineering design of the ion source/accelerator has progressed based on two major R&D at JAERI. One is the development of a high current negative ion source for the JT-60U N-NBI. After the demonstration of D'ion beam production of 400 keV, 13.5 A, the first neutral beam injection experiment has started from March 1996. The other is the development of a 1 MeV, 1 A accelerator which is composed of a five-stage, multi-aperture electrostatic acceleration system. The H*** ions have been successfully accelerated up to an energy of 805 keV, which is 80 % of the energy required for ITER. In addition to these R&Ds, design studies are carried out on the critical components of the ion source/accelerator. Among them, a method to control the temperature of the plasma grid by pressurized hot water is proposed to keep the negative ion production yield constant during the long pulse operation. For the durability under the high neutron environment, high purity alumina ceramics are adopted as insulator materials, and a new technology to fabricate a large insulator has been developed.