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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.
P. T. Lang, B. Ploeckl, M. Bernert, A. Bock, R. Dux, A. Kallenbach, V. Rohde, M. Siccinio, W. Suttrop, A. Zito, and the ASDEX Upgrade Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 1 | January 2021 | Pages 42-50
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1842713
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Xenon is a potential candidate as a pedestal and edge radiator in DEMO, but it is considered troublesome in cases where larger amounts have to be handled in the fuel cycle. Hence, direct and efficient codeposition inside the confined plasma with the fuel injected by means of solid cryogenic pellets is regarded as more favorable than simple gas puffing. At ASDEX Upgrade, investigations are underway to develop a versatile reactor-relevant pellet actuator. Equipped with an accordingly set up pellet launching system and well diagnosed, this all-metal-wall tokamak is well suited for this task. Here, we report on efforts to produce and inject pellets made from deuterium with a reasonable amount of admixed xenon. Results indicate xenon supply via carrier fueling pellets is possible while showing advanced performance. Compared to xenon gas puffing where long latency is observed, presumably due to wall sticking, doped pellets provide much shorter response times. Hence, this first exploration suggests fueling pellets with admixed auxiliary gases can be a versatile, efficient, and fast actuator for additional control features such as, e.g., radiative plasma cooling.