{"id":60166,"date":"2024-10-07T00:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-10-06T22:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/?p=60166"},"modified":"2024-10-07T15:49:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T13:49:35","slug":"developing-3d-printed-tungsten-for-nuclear-reactors-071020244","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/developing-3d-printed-tungsten-for-nuclear-reactors-071020244\/","title":{"rendered":"Can 3D Printed Tungsten Withstand Extreme Conditions in Nuclear Reactors?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a nuclear fusion reactor, temperatures exceed 150 million degrees Celsius\u2014more than ten times hotter than the core of the Sun. Tungsten<\/a>, a rare metal, can endure such extreme temperatures, making it promising for use in nuclear reactors. However, the metal is expensive, hard, and brittle. To advance work with the tricky metal, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a $1 million grant to researchers at Iowa State University to study the possibility of 3D printing<\/a> tungsten parts for nuclear reactors. As we know, tungsten<\/a> is a critical material for metal 3D printing<\/a>, so the Iowa State research team should be one to watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

The grant is part of a $36 million effort by the Energy Department\u2019s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), designed to promote energy-related research across the country. According to the US Energy Information Administration, 19 percent of electricity in the US is produced from nuclear power, but researcher Sougata Roy who received this grant sees huge potential for nuclear energy in the future. <\/span>\u201cOne of the major things that excites me about this project is working with nuclear energy,\u201d <\/span><\/i>Roy said.<\/span> \u201cIt\u2019s the largest source of clean power in the United States. This emission-free electricity is important for the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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Sougata Roy, leader of the DREAM-TEAM<\/p><\/div>\n

Roy is an Iowa State University assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and he will use additive manufacturing to make nuclear reactor shields and components with the grant funding. The professor calls his endeavor the DREAM-TEAM project: \u201cDeveloping a Robust Ecosystem for Additive Manufacturing of Tungsten for Extreme Applications and Management.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

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With the four-year grant, Roy will work with Yachao Wang, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of North Dakota, and researchers from three of the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s labs: Ames National Laboratory on the Iowa State campus, Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why 3D Printed Tungsten?<\/h3>\n

Tungsten is highly resistant to heat, but it also resists erosion under high-energy neutron irradiation and retains low levels of radioactive tritium. These qualities make it ideal for nuclear reactors, but because of its challenging properties, the DREAM-TEAM researchers will try processing tungsten through 3D printing instead of traditional methods. They\u2019ll use laser powder-blown directed-energy deposition<\/a>, which involves a laser melting tungsten powder while it is deposited, and layer by layer, the metal will be printed in an oxygen-controlled environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Roy will purchase a new instrument to characterize the mechanical properties of the printed samples, including their instrumented indentation characteristics and fracture toughness. According to the press release from Iowa State University, Roy said \u201c<\/span>The most unique part of the project isn\u2019t the actual printing, it\u2019s the physics-based modeling and computational simulations of the printing process that will complement the experimental work.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

With machine learning and artificial intelligence, the models and simulations will help the researchers establish theories behind their experimental work. The team will then develop recipes for tungsten alloys that can tolerate nuclear reactor conditions. <\/span>\u201cWe\u2019ll start with pure tungsten,\u201d <\/span><\/i>Roy said. <\/span>\u201cEventually we\u2019ll develop new alloys to resolve this cracking challenge.\u201d <\/span><\/i>To learn more about the DREAM-TEAM project, read Iowa State\u2019s press release here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you think of the DREAM-TEAM mission? Let us know in a comment below or on our\u00a0<\/span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0pages! Don\u2019t forget to sign up for our free weekly\u00a0<\/span>newsletter here<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for the latest 3D printing news straight to your inbox! You can also find all our videos on our\u00a0<\/span>YouTube<\/span><\/a>\u00a0channel.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

*All Photo Credits: Christopher Gannon\/Iowa State University<\/em><\/p>\n

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In a nuclear fusion reactor, temperatures exceed 150 million degrees Celsius\u2014more than ten times hotter than the core of the Sun. Tungsten, a rare metal, can endure such extreme temperatures, making it promising for use in nuclear reactors. However, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6114,"featured_media":60167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3d-materials","category-news","category-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60166"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60230,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60166\/revisions\/60230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}