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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.
T. Hatano, S. Suzuki, K. Yokoyama, M. Akiba, J. Ohmori, T. Kuroda, H. Takatsu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 908-913
Plasma Facing Components Technology (Poster Session) | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963728
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The objective of this study is to develop joining technology of a plasma facing CFC armor and DSCu heat sink by means of Ag-free brazing and to evaluate its performances under repeated high heat flux. For fabrication of a baffle first wall (FW) composed of dispersion strengthened copper (DSCu) as heat sink and carbon fiber composite (CFC) as amor material, a two-step brazing has been proposed. CFC armor tiles were joined to an oxygen free copper (OFCu) plate in the first step and the OFCu plates joined, in turn, to the DSCu heat sink in the second step. After screening tests, brazing materials of Cu-Mn and Al were selected for the first and the second steps, respectively. A small scale baffle FW mock-up of 400 mm in length, 49 mm in width and 52 mm in thickness was successfully fabricated. By destructive test of a piece with the same materials bonded under the same condition as the mock-up, bondability at each brazing interface was confirmed. Thermal cycle tests were performed with the fabricated mock-up. Test conditions were selected based on thermo-mechanical analyses to simulate the temperature at the brazing interface under ITER operation condition and also higher temperatures with higher heat fluxes for acceleration of thermal cycle tests. The mock-up withstood more than 4600 cycles with heat fluxes of 5–10 MW/m2. From results of the thermal cycle tests, the integrity of CFC/DSCu interface was demonstrated.