ORNL team develop 3D-printed nuclear reactor core

This is the ambition of researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) who are refining their design of a 3D-printed nuclear reactor core, scaling up the additive manufacturing process necessary to build it, and developing methods to confirm the consistency and reliability of its printed components.

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The Transformational Challenge Reactor Demonstration Program’s approach to nuclear energy is said to use advances from ORNL in manufacturing, materials, nuclear science, nuclear engineering, high-performance computing, data analytics and related fields. The lab aims to operate the first-of-its-kind reactor by 2023.

“The nuclear industry is still constrained in thinking about the way we design, build and deploy nuclear energy technology,” ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia said in a statement. “DOE [US Department of Energy] launched this program to seek a new approach to rapidly and economically develop transformational energy solutions that deliver reliable, clean energy.”