Application and Prospect of Additive Manufacturing Technology in Nuclear Fuel Assembly Fabrication

Abstract

With the advent of additive manufacturing technology and the rapid development of technology in recent years, the design ideas and manufacturing methods of special-shaped and complex components have been greatly broadened. Combined with the continuous improvement of digital design and manufacturing tools, additive manufacturing technology has been widely used in aviation, aerospace, automotive and other industrial fields. Due to the high safety and reliability requirements for nuclear power equipments, the application of additive manufacturing technology in this field is still in the trial application stage before large-scale engineering promotion. This paper focuses on nuclear fuel, which is the core equipment of pressurized water reactor nuclear power plants. Based on the analysis of current domestic and foreign application examples, the key technologies of additive manufacturing of nuclear fuel are preliminarily explored, and the problems and challenges in the future engineering applications are prospected.