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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.
N. A. Uckan, H-W. Bartels, D. Boucher, T. Honda
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 661-665
Safety and Environment (Poster Session) | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963690
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Verification efforts to compare the results from the safety assessment code SAFALY (with 0-D plasma model) and the 1.5-D plasma transport code PRETOR are discussed. The SAFALY code was used for calculating safety related plasma transients documented in ITER safety reports (ITER-FDR). The PRETOR code was used for plasma performance assessments for many ITER design related problems. Four test cases are considered as a verification basis for the SAFALY-PRETOR comparison: (i) increase in fueling by a specified amount and parameter scans to explore conditions leading to a maximum fusion power transient, (ii) sudden improvement (doubling) of plasma energy confinement time, (iii) sudden injection of 100 MW of heating power into an ignited plasma, and (iv) stop of plasma fueling. Verification studies of plasma transient analysis with SAFALY and PRETOR code systems have confirmed that the significant number of results reported in safety reports [such as ITER-FDR] can be reproduced by both code systems, and that the safety reports were based on the more conservative results.