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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.
Thomas Kozub, Stephan Jurczynski, James Chrzanowski
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 921-925
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Fusion Materials | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A806
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX) is now in design and requires 18 modular coils that are constructed to a highly complex geometry. The modular coil conductors are designed as a composite of a fine gauge stranded copper cable shaped to the required geometry and vacuum impregnated with a resin. These composite conductors exhibit unique material properties that must be determined and verified through testing. The conductor material properties are necessary for design modeling and performance validation. This paper will present the methods used to test and measure the coil conductor material properties, the unique challenges in measuring these complex materials at both room and liquid nitrogen temperatures and the results of those tests.
