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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.
F. Sano, T. Mizuuchi, K. Nagasaki, H. Okada, S. Kobayashi, K. Kondo, K. Hanatani, Y. Nakamura, M. Nakasuga, S. Besshou, S. Yamamoto, M. Yokoyama, Y. Suzuki, Y. Manabe, H. Shidara, T. Takamiya, Y. Ohno, Y. Nishioka, H. Yukimoto, K. Takahashi, Y. Fukagawa, H. Kawazome, M. Kaneko, S. Tsuboi, S. Nakazawa, S. Nishio, M. Yamada, Y. Ijiri, T. Senju, K. Yaguchi, K. Sakamoto, K. Tohshi, M. Shibano, V. Tribaldos, F. Tabares, T. Obiki
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 46 | Number 2 | September 2004 | Pages 288-298
Technical Papers | Stellarators | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A567
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The H-mode transition properties of 70-GHz, 0.4-MW electron cyclotron heating (ECH) plasmas in Heliotron J have been studied with special reference to their magnetic configuration dependences, such as the edge iota dependences. Two edge iota windows for the H-mode transition were observed to be (a) 0.54 < (a)/2 < 0.56 in separatrix discharge plasmas and (b) 0.62 < (a)/2 < 0.63 in partial wall-limiter discharge plasmas if a certain threshold line-averaged electron density ([overbar]ne = 1.2-1.6 × 1019 m-3) is achieved, where (a) is the vacuum edge iota value and a is the plasma minor radius, respectively. A strong dependence of the quality of the H-mode on the edge topology conditions was revealed. The energy confinement time for the separatrix discharge plasmas was found to be enhanced beyond the normal ISS95 scaling in the transient H-mode phase, being 50% longer than that in the "before transition" phase. The window characteristics are discussed on the basis of the calculated geometrical poloidal viscous damping rate coefficient in a collisional plasma, indicating that the behavior of the viscous damping rate coefficient alone could not explain the observed characteristics. The bootstrap current properties of ECH plasmas and the relevant electron cyclotron current drive experimental results are also discussed.