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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.
E. A. Mogahed
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1574-1578
Fusion Power Plants and Economics | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963175
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
LIBRA-SP is a conceptual design study of an inertially confined 1000 MWe fusion power reactor utilizing self-pinched light ion beams. There are 24 ion beams which are arranged around the reactor cavity. The reaction chamber is an upright cylinder with an inverted conical roof resembling a mushroom, and a pool floor. The vertical sides of the cylinder are occupied by a blanket zone consisting of many perforated rigid HT-9 ferritic steel tubes called PERITs (PErforated RIgid Tube). The breeding/cooling material, liquid lead-lithium, flows through the PERITs, providing protection to the reflector/vacuum chamber so as to make it a lifetime component. The neutronics analysis and cavity hydrodynamics calculations are performed to account for the neutron heating and also to determine the effects of vaporization/condensation processes on the surface heat flux. The steady state nuclear heating distribution at the midplane is used for thermal hydraulics calculations. The maximum surface temperature of the HT-9 is chosen to not exceed 625°C to avoid drastic deterioration of the metal's mechanical properties. This choice restricts the thermal hydraulics performance of the reaction cavity. The inlet first surface coolant bulk temperature is 370°C, and the heat exchanger inlet coolant bulk temperature is 502°C.
