BWX Technologies (BWXT) has installed and tested a specialised furnace at their Advanced Technologies facility in Lynchburg, Virginia. The furnace completed a new production line to additively manufacture advanced forms of TRISO (TRI-structural ISOtropic) fuel that can be used in advanced reactors. The project was supported through the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to reduce the risks the BWXT Advanced Nuclear Reactor (BANR) – a high-temperature gas reactor that is being designed to produce 50 MWt using TRISO fuel, and small enough to be transported by rail, ship or truck.
The newly commissioned chemical vapour infiltration furnace solidifies additively manufactured fuel forms that house TRISO particle fuel allowing more TRISO particles per pellet. TRISO fuels contain layers of silicon and carbon that allow the fuel to withstand extremely high temperatures above the threshold of current fuels.
Each TRISO particle is about the size of a poppy seed and can be packaged into cylindrical fuel pellets or pebbles for use in high temperature gas- or molten salt-cooled reactors. BWXT is working with Idaho National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to test and qualify a different form of TRISO fuel that contains a uranium nitride fuel kernel for higher performance.
The new furnace is part of a larger project supported by DOE to optimise advanced manufacturing technologies that could cut the cost of microreactors to benefit future reactor designs in the process.
“Our advanced capability to manufacture TRISO fuel in multiple forms and shapes at scale will play an important role in enabling the SMR and advanced microreactor market to flourish,” said Kate Kelly, president of BWXT Advanced Technologies. “We’re proud to be working with DOE to diversify and optimise our TRISO fuel manufacturing capabilities as part of our ARDP scope and, more broadly, ensure the success of America’s growing advanced nuclear industry.”
Mike Goff, acting assistant secretary at the Office of Nuclear Energy noted: “DOE’s support of BWXT’s microreactor design and TRISO fuel manufacturing capabilities is a great example of how we are working hand-in-hand with industry to re-establish the United States as a global leader in nuclear energy.”
BWXT is expected to ramp up the commercial production of TRISO fuel in support of its commercial BANR design and to meet market demand from other TRISO fuel users. The company is currently leveraging its existing TRISO manufacturing line to produce uranium oxycarbide TRISO fuel for the Project Pele demonstration supported by the Department of Defense.
In July 2024, BWXT announced a cooperation agreement with Wyoming Energy Authority to explore potential locations for a TRISO nuclear fuel fabrication facility in the state. The company also has a cooperative agreement with a subsidiary of Tata Chemicals to explore the deployment of up to eight BANR commercial reactors at a Soda Ash site in Green River, Wyoming in the early 2030s.
