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The First Installation of 3D Printed Parts in Commercial Nuclear Reactors.
Personally, I have high hopes for 3D printed reactor cores, but that's far off, and won't happen in my life time.
A few months back, at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, a nuclear reactor component was printed, but I think it was just a demonstration. (The Museum at Oak Ridge, which I visited when taking my son to his internship, has an example of a 3D printed Jeep)
Now it appears a 3D printed component has been added to existing commercial reactors:
First use of 3D-printed nuclear fuel debris filters
Nuclear fuel debris filters manufactured by Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB using 3D printing technology have been installed at unit 2 of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Finland and unit 3 of the Oskarshamn plant in Sweden.
Westinghouse created the StrongHold AM filter in close cooperation with plant operators Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) and OKG AB. It said the filters are fully manufactured through 3D printing techniques and offer enhanced capture features to prevent debris from entering the fuel assembly and potentially damaging the cladding, which could cause unplanned and expensive outages.
Additive manufacturing - or 3D printing - simplifies the manufacturing process by building a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design model, usually by successively adding material layer by layer.
"As the first 3D-printed fuel debris filter for insertion in a nuclear power plant, the StrongHold AM marks a major milestone in our effort to further improve the boiling water reactor (BWR) fuel reliability by leveraging advances in manufacturing technology," said Carina Önneby, Westinghouse Vice President EMEA Fuel Delivery.
During a recent refuelling outage at the Olkiluoto 2 BWR, two fuel assemblies equipped with 3D-printed filters for exclusion of foreign material were loaded in the reactor.
"We can boast playing a pioneering role, even globally, in the utilisation of this new technology at nuclear power plants," said Fuel Procurement Team Leader Arttu Knuutila from TVO...
Westinghouse created the StrongHold AM filter in close cooperation with plant operators Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) and OKG AB. It said the filters are fully manufactured through 3D printing techniques and offer enhanced capture features to prevent debris from entering the fuel assembly and potentially damaging the cladding, which could cause unplanned and expensive outages.
Additive manufacturing - or 3D printing - simplifies the manufacturing process by building a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design model, usually by successively adding material layer by layer.
"As the first 3D-printed fuel debris filter for insertion in a nuclear power plant, the StrongHold AM marks a major milestone in our effort to further improve the boiling water reactor (BWR) fuel reliability by leveraging advances in manufacturing technology," said Carina Önneby, Westinghouse Vice President EMEA Fuel Delivery.
During a recent refuelling outage at the Olkiluoto 2 BWR, two fuel assemblies equipped with 3D-printed filters for exclusion of foreign material were loaded in the reactor.
"We can boast playing a pioneering role, even globally, in the utilisation of this new technology at nuclear power plants," said Fuel Procurement Team Leader Arttu Knuutila from TVO...
Anti-nukes have won the day, and the climate emergency has reached an unprecedented scale, but if anything can be saved or even restored, nuclear engineering will save and/or restore it.
This is exciting news.
