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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.
Daigo Tsuru et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 875-882
Test Blanket Modules | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9021
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Development of Water Cooled Solid Breeder (WCSB) TBM, the primary candidate of ITER Test Blanket Module (TBM), has been performed in Japan, according to the TBM milestones, which are necessary for acceptance of the TBM in ITER for testing from the first day of plasma operation. The TBM milestones consist of milestones on safety assessment, module qualification and design integration in ITER. For the safety milestones, essential source terms were evaluated, and failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA) was performed. Based on the results of FMEA, safety assessment was performed. For the milestones of the design integration, detailed structural design of the TBM and the interface structure with the ITER test port were performed. Based on the design, performance analysis such as thermo-mechanical analysis in over-pressurization was performed. For the milestones of the qualification of fabrication technology, essential fabrication technology was developed and near full size first wall of the TBM was successfully fabricated and demonstration of the integrity in heat flux equivalent to ITER. The development of the WCSB TBM is showing steady progress toward the installation in ITER.