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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.
V. Cocilovo et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 989-993
Plasma Engineering | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9039
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new facility for fusion , the Fusion Advanced Studies Torus ( FAST ), has been proposed to prepare ITER scenarios and to investigate non linear dynamics of energetic particles, relevant for the understanding of burning plasmas behavior, using fast ions accelerated by heating and current drive systems. This new facility is considered an important tool also for the successful development of the demonstration/prototype reactor (DEMO), because the DEMO scenarios can take valuable advantage by a preparatory activity on devices smaller than ITER with sufficient flexibility and capable plasma conditions, before to testing them on ITER itself.In the regimes proposed for FAST the magnetic Toroidal Field (TF) ripple could lead to significant losses of high-energy particles, as also demonstrated in JET and JT60U experiments, so a careful analysis is necessary to achieve a low value of the TF ripple as far as compatible with the general load assembly design issues.Two different approaches to reduce TF ripple had been considered: Ferromagnetic Insets and Active Coils. For both solutions, different geometric parameters were investigated and the relative benefits and drawbacks evaluated.The analysis was carried out by 2D and 3D electromagnetic F.E.M. codes, dealing with different design solutions, chosen between those compatible with the relevant geometric dimensions of the plasma (i.e. the vacuum vessel), the access to the plasma and the divertor needs (i.e. the vacuum vessel ports dimensions) and other design constrains.A magnet consisting of 18 coils, each made of 14 copper plates suitably worked out in order to realize 3 turns in radial direction has been proposed. To limit within acceptable value the TF magnet ripple, the ferromagnetic insets solution has been chosen for FAST.The ripple on the plasma separatrix (near the equatorial port), has been so reduced from 3% to 0.3% .Due to the good results obtained also with Active Coils a study for applying the Active Coils concept also in ITER design was made, confirming even in this case the possibility to reduce considerably the TF ripple.
