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Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
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. Umeda, N. Akino, N. Ebisawa, L. Grisham, S. Hikita, A. Honda, T. Itoh, M. Kawai, M. Kazawa, M. Kusaka, N. Kusanagi, M. Kuriyama, P. Lee, K. Mogaki, T. Ohga, H. Oohara, F. Satoh, H. Seki, N. Seki, Y. Tanai, R. Toyokawa, K. Usui, H. Yamazaki
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 2 | March 2001 | Pages 1135-1139
Plasma Engineering, Heating, and Current Drive | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963398
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Development for enhancing the beam characteristics in the N-NBI system for JT-60U has been continued since 1996. In order to increase beam power and duration time, a few countermeasures for improvement of source plasma non-uniformity have been tried The first is changing arc current limiting resistors for changing arc current distribution, the second is regulating filament temperature for altering arc discharge mode, the third is optimizing a magnetic barrier in arc chamber, and the fourth is blocking the beam acceleration at a strongly non-uniform source plasma area by masking both upper and lower edge of plasma grid All of these countermeasures have been confirmed to be effective.
