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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.
Massimo Zucchetti
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1501-1505
Safety and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963162
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The passive safety strategy for fusion can be summarized as three options: Inventory-based passive safety, Mobility-based passive safety, and Confinement-based passive safety. The determination of the dose limits for the public must follow a risk-based approach, where “risk” is the product of frequency times consequence. Ignitor is a high magnetic field tokamak, aimed at studying the physics of ignited plasmas. The site chosen for construction is the nuclear site of Saluggia (Northern Italy). The safety goal for Ignitor is the classification as a mobility-based passively safe machine. This choice is based on several assessments, and application of the ALARA principle. Evaluation of plant inventories and operation, and experience from other fusion machines have lead to conclusion that the above limits are the lowest reasonably achievable. The limits, however stringent, to not present a burden to plant operations. A comparison of Ignitor and ITER risk-based curves is finally carried out.
