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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.
Satoshi Sato, Koichi Maki, Hideyuki Takatsu, Yasushi Seki
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1076-1080
Neutronics Experiments and Analyses | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963093
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Shielding analyses for toroidal field coils (TFCs) around the exhaust duct in a nuclear fusion experimental reactor have been performed by two-dimensional discrete ordinate method, and their peak nuclear responses were evaluated. From the results, it was found that the duct wall of about 410 mm thickness was required incase of no shield structure behind the divertor in ordsr to satisfy the radiation limits of TFCs. Taking overestimation due to the analysis model simulating the exhaust duct with a toroidally continuos opening into account, nuclear responses may possibly be lower than the radiation limits by 300 mm thick duct wall. By providing a 480 mm thick shield with 140 mm wide slits behind the divertor, nuclear responses were reduced to about 1/20, and they were equal to or lower than the radiation limits for 200 mm thick duct wall. Also, taking overestimation, nuclear responses may possibly be more than six times lower than the radiation limits for 200 mm thick duct wall.
