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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.
S. A. Korepanov, P. O. Deichuli, A. A. Ivanov, V. V. Mishagin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 1 | January 2005 | Pages 309-311
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems for Plasma Confinement | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A673
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A diagnostic beam system has been developed for the GDT. This injector is the modification of the diagnostic injector RFX-DNBI. The system is primarily used for magnetic field measurements via motional Stark effect (MSE). The ion source provides 50keV, 5A hydrogen beam. Ions are extracted from a plasma created by an arc-discharge source and, after accelerating and focusing, are neutralized in a gas target. A plasma emitter, which is formed by collisionless expansion of a plasma jet on to the grids, has low perpendicular ion temperature. These results in rather low (0.01 rad) angular divergence of the extracted ion beam. In the accelerator, there is a set of four nested grids with 421 circular apertures of 4 mm diameter configured in a hexagonal pattern. The geometry of the elementary cell was optimized by using 2D computer code PBGUNS to obtain small angular divergence of the beam. The grids of ion optical system are spherically curved providing geometric focusing of the beam at a distance 1.5 m. Arc-discharge plasma box provides highly ionized plasma, so that the extracted beam has about 90% of full energy specie. The injector provides up to 4 ms duration pulse.