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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.
Hitoshi Tamura, Nagato Yanagi, Takuya Goto, Junichi Miyazawa, Teruya Tanaka, Akio Sagara, Satoshi Ito, Hidetoshi Hashizume
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 5 | July 2019 | Pages 384-390
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1603041
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The conceptual design of a helical fusion reactor was studied at the National Institute for Fusion Science in collaboration with other universities. Two types of the force free helical reactor (FFHR) are FFHR-d1 and FFHR-c1. FFHR-d1 is a self-ignition demonstration reactor that operates with a major radius of 15.6 m at a magnetic field intensity of 4.7 T. FFHR-c1 is a compact subignition reactor that aims to realize steady electrical self-sufficiency. Compared to FFHR-d1, FFHR-c1 has a magnetic field intensity of 7.3 T and a geometrical scale of 0.7. The location of the superconducting coils in both types of FFHR is based on that of the Large Helical Device (LHD). LHD has a major radius of 3.9 m. According to the design of LHD, the deformation must be within the required value to compensate for the accuracy of the magnetic field. According to this concept, the magnet support structure of LHD was fabricated using thick Type 316 stainless steel to impart sufficient rigidity. Thus, the stress of the magnet system of LHD is sufficiently below the permissible stress. In the case of FFHR, from the viewpoint of the reactor, a large access port is required for the maintenance of the in-vessel components. The mechanical design of the support structure is conceptualized by considering the basic thickness of the material and residual aperture space by referencing the mechanical analysis results. Details of the design concepts of LHD and FFHR-d1/FFHR-c1 as well as the results of mechanical analyses are introduced in this paper.