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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.
A. Molvik, A. Ivanov, G. L. Kulcinski, D. Ryutov, J. Santarius, T. Simonen, B. D. Wirth, A. Ying
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 57 | Number 4 | May 2010 | Pages 369-394
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A9499
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The successful operation (with 60%, classical ions and electrons with Te = 250 eV) of the gas dynamic trap device at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk, Russia, extrapolates to a 2 MW/m2 dynamic trap neutron source (DTNS), which burns only [approximately]100 g of tritium per full-power year. The DTNS has no physics, engineering, or technology showstoppers; the extension of neutral beam lines to steady state can use demonstrated engineering; and it supports near-term tokamaks and volume neutron sources. The DTNS provides a neutron spectrum similar to that of ITER and satisfies the missions specified by the materials community to test fusion materials (listed as one of the top grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century by the U.S. National Academy of Engineering) and subcomponents (including tritium-breeding blankets) needed to construct DEMO. The DTNS could serve as the first fusion nuclear science facility (FNSF), called for by ReNeW (the Research Needs Workshop), and could provide the data necessary for licensing subsequent FSNFs.
