3D Printed Nuclear Reactor
The Oak Ridge National Lab is planning to run a nuclear mini-reactor. And it should completely change nuclear energy as should have a cheap, yet powerful core that was 3D printed.
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When Kurt Terrani, the chief engineer from the Oak Ridge National Lab's Transformational Challenge Reactor program designed and built new components for a nuclear reactor it was a gas-cooled reactor. That is a reactor as old as nuclear energy itself. Yet, Terrani's team is trying to push the boundaries of nuclear energy forward. The trick of this reactor is in the fact that once this new fission reactor starts in 2023 it will be the first nuclear reactor with a 3D printed core.
3D printing is pushing its way forward
The goal of Terrani and his coworkers is to speed up the building of nuclear systems that will still provide excellent power output. It may sound strange, but nuclear energy is actually a quite conservative field that is highly resistant to any changes. For example, American reactors are still mainly built around the technology that was new fifty years ago. It sort of makes sense, there are so many risks associated with nuclear energy that the effect of “good old technology” is quite powerful. But Terrani and his team are afraid that if nuclear energy in the USA doesn't move forward it could find itself lacking behind.
Nuclear engineers could not notice how successful 3D printing is. And this is true even about industrial fields seemed not to be so friendly to 3D printing. You can use 3D printers to print rocket engines, parts of plane engines, and many other machines that face quite extreme conditions. 3D printing allows you to use shapes and materials that would be practically impossible to use in the past. But the true key to the success of 3D printing is the fact that it is much quicker and cheaper than traditional manufacturing.
Now, 3D printing could become a key technology for building future nuclear reactors. Terrani's team recently developed a design for a 3D printed core that will become part of the upcoming Transformation Challenge Reactor. This is an advanced gas-cooled mini-reactor that uses helium as its cooling agent. Part of the reactor will be made from classical components but the whole core of the reactor will be 3D printed from silicon carbide. This is an extremely durable material that is almost impossible to melt.
It is precisely the core where the most important stuff of nuclear energy happens. This is where the uranium fuel is burned and where the components that control the fission reactor are. Thus, they are under extreme stress. The 3D printed TCR core is barely half a meter large and the whole reactor should not be much larger than a keg of beer. Yet, it will have a power output of 3 MW – enough for about 1000 American households.
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