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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.
M. S. Tillack, J. E. Pulsifer
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 446-451
IFE Drivers and Chambers | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-32
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The grazing incidence metal mirror is a promising option for the final optic in a laser-driven inertial fusion energy power plant. It has been pursued as an alternative to multi-layer dielectric mirrors based on expectations of higher radiation damage resistance. Aluminum offers high reflectivity over a broad range of wavelengths extending deep into the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, and thus offers special advantages for an excimer laser driver. In this article, we describe the fundamental phenomena of laser-induced metal mirror damage and lifetime, strategies for mirror fabrication, our experimental facility and techniques, and the results of fabrication and test campaigns over the past several years.
