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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.
Caron Jantzen, E. P. Lee, Per F. Peterson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 1047-1052
Inertial Fusion (Poster Session) | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963752
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Gas dynamics in the heavy-ion inertial-fusion-energy power plant, HYLIFE-II, have been modeled using the code TSUNAMI. Simulations were run and results compared using both ideal-gas and the partial-ionization equations of state. Developed by Zeldovich and Raizer, the partial-ionization model approximates the Saha equation for multiply ionized species in a gas mixture. Results from a cylindrically symmetric simulation indicate an initial, low density, burst of high energy particles enters the final-focus transport beam line within 28 microseconds after the blast, much faster than the proposed 1 millisecond shutter closing time. After approximately 300 microseconds the chamber debris flux levels off to one eighth its peak value and maintains this level until the shutter closes. Uncertainty in IFE target design motivated the adjustment of two target parameters: target mass and the ratio of x-ray to debris kinetic energy. Although initial jet x-ray ablation is considered, neither secondary radiation nor condensation were modeled. Therefore results are conservative.