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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.
A. A. Ivanov, A. D. Beklemishev, E. P. Kruglyakov, P. A. Bagryansky, A. A. Lizunov, V. V. Maximov, S. V. Murakhtin, V. V. Prikhodko
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 57 | Number 4 | May 2010 | Pages 320-325
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A9493
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The status of the experiments on the axially symmetric magnetic mirror device gas dynamic trap (GDT) is discussed. The plasma has been heated by skewed injection of 20-keV, 3.5-MW, 5-ms deuterium/hydrogen neutral beams at the center of the device, which produces anisotropic fast ions. Neither enhanced transverse losses of the plasma nor anomalies in the fast ion scattering and slowing down were observed. Extension of neutral beam injection pulse duration from 1 to 5 ms resulted in an increase in the on-axis transverse beta (ratio of the transverse plasma pressure to magnetic field pressure) from 0.4 at the fast ion turning points near the end mirrors to about 0.6. The measured beta value is rather close to or even higher than that expected in different versions of the GDT-based 14-MeV neutron source for fusion materials testing. The density of fast ions with the mean energy of 10 to 12 keV reached 5 × 1019 m-3 near the turning points. The electron temperature at the same time reached [approximate]200 eV. The radial plasma losses were suppressed by sheared plasma rotation in the periphery driven by biasing of end wall segments and the radial limiter in the central solenoid.
