TY - JOUR
T1 - Reactor physics characterization of triply periodic minimal surface-based nuclear fuel lattices
AU - Martin, Nicolas
AU - Seo, Seokbin
AU - Prieto, Silvino Balderrama
AU - Jesse, Casey
AU - Woolstenhulme, Nicolas
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Alexandria Madden for performing the technical editing of the manuscript. This work was supported through the Idaho National Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program under the Department of Energy Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07-05ID14517. This manuscript has been authored by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517.
Funding Information:
This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517 .
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Alexandria Madden for performing the technical editing of the manuscript. This work was supported through the Idaho National Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program under the Department of Energy Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07-05ID14517 . This manuscript has been authored by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2023/11
Y1 - 2023/11
N2 - Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) lattices are receiving substantial attention in numerous engineering fields due to their impressive topology-driven physical characteristics. TPMS lattices are periodic structures of two distinct intertwined volume domains separated by an area-minimizing surface or wall. TPMS lattices have been observed in nature, such as biological membranes, skeletons, block copolymers, sea urchins, butterfly wings, and equipotential surfaces in crystals. Intriguingly, the topology of TPMS lattices can be easily parametrized via level-set equations and thus are heavily numerically and experimentally studied. A significant research effort is currently applying TPMS lattices for heat exchangers and sinks. This paper extends TPMS lattice applications to nuclear reactor fuel designs, with a focus on identifying relevant TPMS geometric parameters controlling neutronics characteristics, such as reactivity, neutron spectrum, and heat removal properties. We found that fuel surface-area-to-volume ratios for TPMS lattices can be two orders of magnitude larger than current cylindrical fuel rods. Further, the selected TPMS lattice and its implicit equation, the unit cell pitch, wall thickness, and structure porosity are design parameters enabling neutronics optimization for both thermal and fast spectrum configurations, paving the way for exceptionally compact and dense nuclear core concepts.
AB - Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) lattices are receiving substantial attention in numerous engineering fields due to their impressive topology-driven physical characteristics. TPMS lattices are periodic structures of two distinct intertwined volume domains separated by an area-minimizing surface or wall. TPMS lattices have been observed in nature, such as biological membranes, skeletons, block copolymers, sea urchins, butterfly wings, and equipotential surfaces in crystals. Intriguingly, the topology of TPMS lattices can be easily parametrized via level-set equations and thus are heavily numerically and experimentally studied. A significant research effort is currently applying TPMS lattices for heat exchangers and sinks. This paper extends TPMS lattice applications to nuclear reactor fuel designs, with a focus on identifying relevant TPMS geometric parameters controlling neutronics characteristics, such as reactivity, neutron spectrum, and heat removal properties. We found that fuel surface-area-to-volume ratios for TPMS lattices can be two orders of magnitude larger than current cylindrical fuel rods. Further, the selected TPMS lattice and its implicit equation, the unit cell pitch, wall thickness, and structure porosity are design parameters enabling neutronics optimization for both thermal and fast spectrum configurations, paving the way for exceptionally compact and dense nuclear core concepts.
KW - Additive manufacturing
KW - Heat transfer
KW - Nuclear fuel design
KW - Triply periodic minimal surface
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85171612945&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/b7f75c49-1401-3ff1-9248-13cfe02feaa1/
U2 - 10.1016/j.pnucene.2023.104895
DO - 10.1016/j.pnucene.2023.104895
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85171612945
SN - 0149-1970
VL - 165
SP - 104895
JO - Progress in Nuclear Energy
JF - Progress in Nuclear Energy
M1 - 104895
ER -