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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.
D. L. Hillis, J. T. Hogan, P. Andrew, J. Ehrenberg, M. Groth, M. von Hellermann, L.D. Horton, R. Monk, P. Morgan, M. Stamp
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 941-945
Plasma Facing Components Technology (Poster Session) | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963734
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Future fusion reactors, like ITER, will rely on an active exhaust system to pump tritium (T) in the divertor and then recirculate it to the fuel stream. Estimation of the T inventory requires a detailed T balance, which determines if T is preferentially enriched relative to D in its pathway from the main plasma to the divertor and pump. On the Joint European Torus (JET), the neutral T concentration in the sub-divertor (pumping plenum and region below the divertor strike point plate) is measured with a modified Penning gauge coupled to a high-resolution spectrometer. In addition, T concentration measurements are made in the plasma edge and strike point region with a spectrometer viewing these regions. The sub-divertor and divertor (region above the strike point plate) T concentration measurements show differences during initial T uptake and retention which are characteristic of wall deposition properties. Since wall retention is one of the factors in calculating the eventual T inventory in a reactor, a detailed study of this process has been undertaken.