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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.
J. N. Brooks et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 669-677
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Divertor and Plasma-Facing Components | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A763
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The US Advanced Limiter-divertor Plasma-facing Systems (ALPS) program is developing the science of liquid metal surface divertors for near and long term tokamaks. These systems may help solve the demanding heat removal, particle removal, and erosion issues of fusion plasma/surface interactions. ALPS combines tokamak experiments, lab experiments, and modeling. We are designing both static and flowing liquid lithium divertors for the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at Princeton. We are also studying tin, gallium, and tin-lithium systems. Results to date are extensive and generally encouraging, e.g., showing: 1) good tokamak performance with a liquid Li limiter, 2) high D pumping in Li and non-zero He/Li pumping, 3) well-characterized temperature-dependent liquid metal surface composition and sputter yield data, 4) predicted stable low-recycle improved-plasma NSTX-Li performance, 5) high temperature capability Sn or Ga potential with reduced ELM & disruption response concerns. In the MHD area, analysis predicts good NSTX static Li performance, with dynamic systems being evaluated.
