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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.
Jing Pan, Weiwei Xu, Weibin Xi, Mingzhun Lei, Xufeng Liu, Songtao Wu, Kun Lu, Jing Wei, Yuntao Song
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 6 | August 2021 | Pages 477-488
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1936376
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The evaluation of electromagnetic (EM) loads acting on conductive structures is one of the critical problems for tokamaks. This paper focuses on the main conductive components of the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), which are vacuum vessel (VV) and blanket components. A multiscenario EM load-calculating simulator is developed. The simulator adopts circuit equations for the calculation of eddy current, magnetic field, and resulting EM loads acting on the VV. And for EM loads acting on the blanket components, an integral parameter method is applied. With the circuit equations and pre-obtained integral parameters implanted in the simulator, EM loads on the CFETR VV and blankets at different scenarios can be evaluated quickly. Results indicate that the simulator can be conveniently used for multiscenario and real-time EM assessment of the tokamak VV and blanket components.
