Oak Ridge National Laboratory ( ORNL ) has made great progress, having successfully designed, printed and tested the first 3D printed rabbit capsule, one of the important nuclear components for energy projects.
The creation of efficient nuclear components
” Rabbit capsules ” are essential devices in nuclear fuel and materials research, used to house experiments undergoing irradiation in test reactors. Typically manufactured using conventional procedures, these capsules have now become a challenge for additive manufacturing due to strict quality and strength requirements.
ORNL used a powder -bed laser printer to create a stainless steel capsule, which was then assembled, loaded, and sealed before being inserted into the High Flux Isotope Reactor ( HFIR ). The capsule successfully withstood the reactor’s extreme conditions, demonstrating the feasibility of additive manufacturing to produce highly reliable nuclear components.
This achievement represents a breakthrough in nuclear power component manufacturing , where precision and reliability are vital. According to Richard Howard, group leader for irradiation engineering at ORNL, ” This is an important step toward demonstrating that additive manufacturing can be used to develop and qualify specialized components that cannot be machined conventionally .”
As progress is made in qualifying these 3D printed components, ORNL is looking to the future to potentially use this technology to develop other specialized nuclear reactor components.
This winter, ORNL will conduct a post-irradiation evaluation of the 3D-printed rabbit capsule, an important procedure to confirm its long-term performance. In addition, successful testing of the rabbit capsule is expected to drive the use of other 3D-printed components in security and energy applications.
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Source and photos: US Department of Energy
