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Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
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.
Li Jiang, Ge Gao, Zhengyi Huang, Jie Zhang, Peng Wu, Xuesong Xu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 2 | February 2022 | Pages 96-102
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1957369
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
According to the ITER requirement, the availability of the poloidal field (PF) coil power supply system must be 98.3% during the life cycle of ITER. In order to meet this requirement, Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Inspectability (RAMI) analysis has been applied for analyzing the availability and reliability of the PF power supply system. First, the function analyses, which are described using the Integration Definition Function–language Ø or IDEFØ model are performed. Second, the failure mode effect and criticality analyses are used to calculate the risk level, present the potential causes and effects, and provide the risk mitigation actions to reduce the risk level for each failure. Third, the reliability block diagram is built to simulate the availability and reliability of the system. RAMI analysis provides a method that can be followed to improve the availability and reliability of the system, and from the results, the design requirement can be satisfied.
