From lab to reactor: Scaling up advanced manufacturing for fuels and more

摘要

Advanced manufacturing is more than just additive manufacturing, as Jorgen Rufner and Adrian Wagner-both group leads at Idaho National Laboratory-would be quick to point out. Researchers at INL have been working with additive manufacturing (that's 3D printing, colloquially) for decades. These days, INL boasts the largest industrial-scale electric field assisted sintering (EFAS) machine of its kind and four other EFAS systems, including one coupled with a glove box for work with radioactive materials. That equipment and more can make samples, fuels, and components for both light water reactors and advanced reactors and for both publicly and privately funded programs. At INL, researchers don't need to go far to test and analyze prototype fuels or components. After irradiation in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or the Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility and postirradiation examination in the Hot Fuel Examination Facility or Irradiated Materials Characterization Laboratory, the research cycle is complete-or ready for the next iteration.